Didn’t Florida do something similar a few years ago with bears “they didn’t have” and the season closed after a few days with an overkill of what the quota was? Their numbers were way off.

Our previous three successful seasons showed that even when we thought we were pressuring a zone, we didn't. Take zone 6. In 2014-15 season , we harvested nearly 130% of our midwinter count. Science says 40% in consecutive years will start to lower population. https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/hunt/documents/WolfReport3.pdf

So what happened to population the following year? Let's take a look. https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/Wildlifehabitat/wolf/documents/PostDelistMonitor2015.pdf

So with a harvest approaching 130% we actually saw the population go from 7 packs to 11 and the count of 28 increased to 34. Occupancy models show just how much we are missing.

sadly I think the DNR could stay in the office and make up any number they want to see and it would look surprisingly close to the number they got with their survey.

much like counting votes if you just stop counting when the outcome is the way you want it all the numbers are dandy and agree.

How many anti got tags and falsely reported???

If they did, they're in for a real surprise. They need to present the hide and carcass at the time of tagging.

So all these hound men that took money so some tag holder could kill a wolf. Do they need to be a licensed guide to do that? If so I'm betting there could be a bunch of hound men In some deep crap.

Yes, they need a guide license to charge for that. Which I’m sure you knew or you wouldn’t have brought it up.

If the statewide goal was a population of 350 and u have about 1500 why wasn't the quota set at 1150?

Sounds like you got grief with a certain houndsman. It wouldn’t be fair to state “all these hounds men” that charged money then not have a list. It comes across as a trapper degrading hounds guys.

I am both. I wouldn’t want either to falsely accuse the other. Let’s all be outdoorsmen and congratulate the guys with dogs that had huge success. Hopefully this fall trappers get their shot right away come November.

Listen up I just asked a question. I did not know If they needed a license. If they need a license then I'm assuming most do but when you can charge $1000.000 or $2000.00 to run down a wolf that brings the bad apples out of the woods.

Mortality just needs to.be 40% to start to reduce population levels. And you have to remember that our season is just one part of mortality for wolves. When you go down you do it in a gradual path so you don't go screaming past your target.

A lot of the state is not surveyed. If the hounds men were trying to help get us a much larger quota for the following year, they should have ensured a few more wolves were pulled from nonsurveyed blocks. It will be interesting to see if any of that happened when they put the harvest summary together.

Beav,we can’t have the attitude you expressed. We have enough of that attitude within our game departments and antis. You assume someone is bad. We can’t have that. We are all in this together if you think that keep to your self. I won’t be looking at this post again so don’t bother replying.

Interesting

I dont know IF they did or not, but anyone can be a guide in Wi. for 40 bucks. So..........

Here is a little more about zone 6. Remember how I said it takes two consecutive years of 40% to reduce population slightly? Let's go back a year. We harvested 29 which was nearly 90% of min count.
2013-2014 Harvest

So when folks get excited we harvested 40 wolves with a quota of 17 for zone 6 this year, remind them that this was only 70% of the min count. The previous two years when we had stable population with harvest, we did 90 and 130%. 2020 Population survey

Why is this a big deal? We harvested 36 wolves when we hit 130%. So what was the real population. I don't know, but since we had population growth, the harvest wasn't 40% of population. 36/.4=90. We had 90+ wolves back in 2015 in zone 6 when their own modeling showed 28. Anyone think it grew since then?

Time to take it another level. So here is the last tracking survey (2020). Take a look at zone 6.

We had 75 sightings and see a total of 101 wolves. We have 8 other observations of sign and 83 wolves. Sure some are duplicates, but we also have to understand that we miss a lot also. Especially when we look at the area that is not surveyed in zone 6.

Here is what it means in terms of population estimate. In zone 6, we get an estimate of 57-58.


Yet somehow, we are told to believe we harvest 70% of our count (40 out of 57-58 wolves) in a couple days. What are the hunters doing that our survey trackers are not? See my information above is really a conservative number. 40% is to reduce population. 20-29% keeps population stable. So in reality, we really have 90-180 wolves on the landscape. 36/.2=180. If our population remains steady with this next survey, we swap out 36 for 40 and the numbers look like this. 40/.2= 200. And we need at least a quota of 80 for just that zone to see a population decline. .4*200 =80 Should we start to look at other zones to see what quota should really be next year?

I received an unexpected call from a private number tonight. I almost didn't answer it thinking it was some telemarketer. On the other end of the line was the Founder of Hunter Nation, Keith Mark. He was calling to thank me for the support and see if there was any other issues that I thought they should tackle. I was really impressed that the organization was willing to take five minutes to ask. I was glad to hear they wanted to duplicate the win in WI with another state.

That is very impressive!!!

Many thanks WIMarshRat!!

It costs $40 for a resident and $100 for a nonresident guide license in WI.
Fill out the form, pay the money. There are no other requirements.

Awesome