I joined Hunter Nation and made a contribution to WILL (Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty) after they won the lawsuit that gave us a season. They walked the walk.

Looks like department wants to go super conservative with the wolf quota this fall. Only 130.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/spor...f-kill-quota-130-fall-season/5430347001/

I saw that... Sad to hear. Also..... So many guys dont know the diff between quota harvest and tags. I wonder if they'll adjust the native allotment of tags like they did years past for not actually filling them.

Well, 130 is more than I thought we would see this year.

At that rate the carrying capacity will never be reached! Must be the new math.

1136-350=786 quota. Old math!!

And 130 more than MN will get to harvest. I suppose a few crumbs are better than nothing.

Looks like the WCC is looking to change their position on wolves. Emergency meeting Monday.

https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/sites/default/files/topic/About/WCC/2021/Wolf_080221A.pdf

What is proposed by DNR, what is approved, and what the court allows to happen might be three different things.

In the 3 fall seasons in the past, trapping was about 4 times more successful then hunting to harvest a wolf. We don't know how that number (130) will be allocated out to the various zones and the tribes etc. let alone the other input groups that will have voices.
The permits are scheduled to be out in late August. We are having 3 wolf demos at our WTA this fall, two by Paul Antczak and one by Skye Goode, ( I will post the full line up in a day or two). The fact that we have the opportunity to harvest up to nearly 350 wolves in WI in one year is more encouraging to me then negative but then we all look at the pot and see different things.

Bryce

Bryce, I applaud the WTA for getting on the wolf train with the demos. Hopefully they will be well attended. I think you bring up some interesting points about zones and tribal allocation. If we follow last year's example on allocation, we would end up with about 60% or 78 wolves. But if they go down the path Pike mentioned, we end up with more.

So I wanted to review the population modeling from their surveying this past year and I see that document is not loaded yet to website. The previous harvest report is up on the website for those that want to review it.

https://widnr.widen.net/s/k8vtcgjwkf/wolf-season-report-february-2021

Well the WCC wolf advisory Committee met tonight and made the recommendation to the ELC that they still supported the position of 350 or less for a population goal. They also wanted to request a higher quota to the board. Regardless of the amount set aside for the natives, they wanted 300 to go to state license holders this fall. Is was noted that in the past after natives refused to use quota, the following year only 25 was set aside. It will be interesting to see if board will side with the WCC or the department.

From my perspective I would have hoped the committee would have asked for more than 130 but not as high as 300. Asking for a 140% increase over what the Department is asking for to me does not seem to be a sincere or serious attempt at gaining more permits being offered. Sure we want to reduce the population and that can be done, but it does not have to be done in one year. We have had over a half a decade with no harvest so being willing to get seasons over time to measure the result of harvests will help to better solidify what the numbers should be in the future. Also asking for that many after 200 plus wolves were harvested in the same year to me actually lowers the value of a permit for a trophy. We now are looking at wanting to harvest more wolves then bobcats in a season and we have spent a lot of money and time trying to increase the bobcat population as with fisher, marten and even bear we are not looking to decrease the numbers from a goal that was readjusted up by almost 70% a few years ago. As a trapper I can see the rationale but I don't feel we should be treating one predator with such contempt while we have actually paid money to do research to increase other predator species. I don't feel we should make the antis job any easier than it is already.

Bryce

I think 300 is a minimal number considering the amount of wolves you guys have, and also I suspect they are asking for more than they expect to get, just like dealing on a car, never price it at what you want for it, because you know the buyer will try and jew you down, and you want some room to negotiate.

Personally I'm hardnosed. I would have taken the number they estimate the population at, subtract 350, and ask for that number. When they hit the roof I would have pointed out that a)population estimates are always ridiculously low and b)when they introduced them they swore they had a goal of a stable population of 350.

Bryce, our quota for bobcat last year was 600 in just the north and another 500 in the south. Not sure how 300 wolves is in the same ballpark?

The sentiment you are looking for would come if the department would ever fight as hard for a season as they did to stop this past season. More importantly, they need to actually start to go down and make sure they have an effort to move the illegal harvest into the resource bucket.

I feel the department is working hard to keep a harvest season going and the state controlling the management of this species. Now that may be slower then many would like or want but I feel they may have better insight on how we keep the species in our camp and not the judicial system. Many times science does not move as quickly or in the direction we want it to, but I feel that working hard to remove as much politics and impulsive actions from this is important as it is lack of science and impulsive passion that will take it away as well. It is just a matter of which side reaches the nerve center of those who respond to intense politics the hardest.
I have not heard one word from anyone about having more bobcats on the landscape.
What we don't want is that the antis can find evidence that harvest oriented groups will resort to passion politics instead of science and we lose the big card we have always had .

Bryce

Science from the management plan says season should be used to keep population at goal.

So why when we were nearly four times the goal(using their population estimate), did the state file an appeal to stop the harvest? They officially went on the record they would do everything in their power to stop a hunt. Now compare that to them muzzling our large carnivore specialist and preventing him from working to get the season back while he was here. It was only fitting that after he left, he was able to get our season back. No longer on the states payroll, but he showed what would happen when he was allowed to actually work for sportsmen.

Now why is this important? The state is just as likely to find themselves back in a lawsuit if we don't start moving towards that goal.

I feel we should proceed with caution as there could be a change in the "planned or original goal" of 350 wolves. That was done with bears when the research indicated there were about 10K more than the original 15K that was thought to be out there, now we deal with the over 20K of bear as the norm. Yes there probably will be law suits coming from both ends which means the science will not be a major impact factor as the legal arguments are made.

Bryce

Did the state ever try to shut down the bear harvest until they could get a higher population goal? Or did they just let hunters lead the effort to drive acceptance for a higher population? Hunters will lead if you give them the chance, but you have to show them you are willing to fight for them.

Does it really matter who is responsible for the new higher estimates of our bear population? They are here and the biological carrying capacity has absorbed them in very well. Obviously the social carrying capacity for bears is much, much more acceptable than for wolves. If you raise livestock in the wolf areas then wolves can be a big factor. If you raise crops in bear areas the bears can be a huge factor but there is not the social alarm about the loss of crops as there is about livestock. Unfortunately the science has departed the wolf management program long, long ago. If we have 25K black bear and we harvest say 4-4,500 per year then we are taking about 1 out of 7 of those bear annually. If we harvest 1 out of 7 wolves with our 300 for this year, assuming we harvest close to 100 this fall then that would be 1/7th of 2,100 wolves. If there are that many then we would be harvesting at the same level of other closely monitored permitted species.

Bryce

The difference of course being that wolves have litters every year as compared to bears every other year and have more young per litter than bears. Many studies show you can take 50% of your wolf population each year and it will be replaced by young of the year next year. Bears you can take around 20% and retain a stable population number.

You make a very good reasoned point, based on facts, so certainly don't expect the state to pay the least attention to it, much less to the additional facts I just pointed out.