Man oh man the term "quality of experience" makes my blood boil worse than just about anything.

When I hit that I stopped reading because I could digest what I already read.

If trappers, trappers associations, hunters and hunting groups allow that to continue we'll get what we deserve

Once I settle down I'll digest the rest and comment.

I wasn't arguing about the population being to low. If it sounds that way, my bad. That was not my intentions. Personally I hate the darn critters & wish our population was 0. But that's just my opinion.

Carry on

49er what's the old saying about numbers....and lieing ?

Numbers never lie, but liars use numbers?

Maybe the reason I enjoyed Paul Harvey...now you know the rest of the story.

Too many wolves in this state right now.

That much I hope we can all agree on.

The saying is figures lie and liars figure.

So 49er, should trend data be used to increase/decrease or should it only be used to maintain stable population?

Back to our marten area...300 sq miles could theoretically have 3 to 15 packs of wolves if we use dnr numbers. Improve the prey species by habitat improvements and you have a higher population. Only trap outside of that zone and what happens? The very area that could benefit from a lower wolf population is forced to maintain a higher wolf population. A stakeholder that should support our heritage is going to be fighting against us.

So the feds get brought in and they remove those animals. Simple math tells me if we can harvest 30% and we have three wolves in pack, that is 30 to 150 less permits each year. Last year that we had a harvest, we had 1500 permits available.

So this Martin area is a perfect square, fenced and designed to encompass complete wolf pack territories? OR is it totally irregular so that trappers would have access to almost all wolf packs. Could we count on hunters to possibly thin out those few that escape the steel? Mr Rat, you are an expert at taking a minor talking point and exploiting it to the fullest to the point of fiction. We get it, You like wolves, you want to deflect this thread away from wolves.
I was kinda OK with wolf no. 350, wolf no.351,352, etc. should be harvested.

The marten Issue Is a big can of worms and I believe It needs to be canned. We have been screwing around with marten reintroduction forever and It's not working. No habitat and no prey species and you can't fix that. The only benefit to this marten thing Is that someone Is getting a pay check.

Sure Diggerman, I like wolves. I like all furbearers—their presence generates trappers. More of them means more trappers. Last I checked, we were still on a downward trend in the number of trappers. We can’t create enough to replace the ones that we are losing each decade. Doesn’t mean that I am shortsighted and only focus on one animal and think we should only focus on artificially increasing their population. I, too, agree that we have too many wolves in the state. What I don’t like is us putting some arbitrary number like 350 out there. I prefer some sort of balance and we have no idea if 350 will even get us close to being in balance at the current distribution of wolves.

Deer hunters can be some of the most shortsighted people around. Take Waupaca county. It just about went doe only because the deer guys continue to tell the other stakeholders they have to live with the decision that they want to see more deer. There was even a resolution that tried to allow deer damage permits to be issued based on deer browse on forested areas. Know why there are blocks that hold huge amounts of deer in Waupaca county? The property owners actively manage the habitat. The rest sit and complain that they don’t see any deer in their huge wide open hardwoods and plowed ag fields that can barely can support a squirrel. Wolves have shown up and some even blame the wolves because they believe all this hysteria being feed by others. Which group do you want to be in?

This same mindset was the mindset that told us beaver and fish couldn’t coexist. We must make all our trout streams beaver free. Where did that get us? See trappers should fight for balance. Instead we get caught up in this 350 number because that is what the deer guys tell us to think. We need to be able to think for ourselves. We took all the beaver preferred habitat and made it beaver free while not doing anything to increase the beaver habitat where they were allowed/desired. You are asking me to repeat this same mistake on wolves.

I prefer the guys that get active and focus on habitat. Maybe it is my appreciation for the DU model. HABITAT, HABITAT, HABITAT.

…So now it appears I break from my habitat kick to show you how to keep an area of 300 sq miles lower in wolf densities by building stakeholders, and you feel I am deflecting away from wolves and am against more wolves being harvested? I bet RMEF would ensure every block was surveyed if they have not already done so for wolves. I am betting these two private organizations could get an increase in the wolves harvested there to lower the density without any government program to guide them. This should give us a baseline of an area to see how things are responding to a lower density of wolves and more prey species driven by habitat improvements. More importantly, I am negating a negative stakeholder into a positive one that is focused on HABITAT together. This is how you win long term.

Looks like I found one of my resolution for this next year

Any ideas on why the marten don't do well here? There's a fair population in Mn.? isn't there?

I think It's about not having a constant or preferred food source like the red backed vole or something like that. And that's something we can't fix.
There just tying up a large chunk of ground with no hope of ever having a sustainable marten population.

They have had research people on the government teat for about 20 years trying to make this work. And the WTA even donates some shekels to that program.

Recently there have been reports that Marten have been repopulating some islands in the Apostles without any human help at all. Pretty cool discovery.

I seen that too Fox Claw. I caught a marten while fisher trapping, east of Eagle River in '05. About 8 miles outside the closed restoration area.

I will start by saying that we need to reduce the wolf and bear populations in the state. I deer hunt in Douglas county. The issue we had there over the years was a massive over population of deer. Predator populations climbed with that increase. The DNR was giving out doe tags as fast as they could print them and the hunter were shooting them. This went on for 10 yrs or more. All the while the predator populations didn't decrease. The deer did alot of damage to the browse that was available. So with the predators, hunters and habitat decline the numbers of deer went down drastically. Add in 2 straight winters that were bad and what we have now is what this recipe cooked up. You can walk through the woods and see first hand the damage the deer have done from over browsing and this will not fix itself over night. I agree with alot of what WiMarshRAT is saying. There are alot of factors that go into the population decline in the northwoods but to solely blame the wolf is misguided. I believe every animal has its place. They were here before I was. I also believe in sound harvest practices which have been lacking by all in the state for some time. I mean how is it that someone has to apply for up to 10 yrs for a kill tag for bear yet Wisconsin bear population is the highest or among the highest in the lower 48? Wolves will generally take the weakest but the bear takes fawns most part and these animals could be next generations stongest.

Pretty cool Fox Claw. Just in case anyone was interested in a little more detail about that discovery, figured I would include an article below.

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/outdoor...apostle-islands

Brian, your answer might be hidden in this discovery.

USDA Wildlife Services (AKA "APHIS") officials in Wisconsin have formed a business partnership with an "anti" group here. The Pro-wolf group "wolves of Douglas County" has been selling a non-lethal wolf deterrent called a "foxlight" to APHIS at 85 bucks a piece. I'm not exactly sure what "foxlight" is, but from the description it sounds like some kind of automatic flashlight. How's that for outrageous and a waste of your tax monies?

Read more here: http://www.wpr.org/usda-experiments-new-tool-deter-wolves

Aphis tried flashing lights yrs back already up in Ashland county and it DIDNT WORK. Im surprised that David bought into this unless his supervisor told him to buy them...

That's just the way governments have been ran for years. Nothing new there.
Anyway, with marten. What is their main food source? Pine squirrels? Snowshoe hare? Or maybe just small rodents such as mice & voles? I've heard that they don't co-exist well with the fisher. That the fisher kill them. Just like a coyote will kill foxes. Do they live together in the same habitat as fisher in other states? IDK. just curious.

I personally would rather see fisher & marten populations increase dramatically in this state. I don't care for the wolves, & would not mind if they were gone completely. Obviously not all agree. Just my view.

Sorta of varies by location.

Up here the red back vole is their mainstay. It could be different where you are.

They eat all kinds of stuff. Birds, squirrels, hares, fish, berries, carrion. Actually a wolf population is a benefit to marten. They can and do eat the leftovers from wolf kills.


I don't know whether fisher kill marten (we don't have fisher where I am) but they can out-compete them for the food source just because they are bigger