Last year was an anomaly with the warm winter and lots of open water. As an ice fisherman, it was terrible.

I still don't get how some states get away with defying federal regulations on marijuana but don't have the guts to defy the ESA and manage their wildlife for the benefit of their citizens.

A wolf snatched a chihuahua from a backyard with a couple other big dogs in the yard near Minocqua a couple weeks ago. I don't know how you folks living in wolf country put up with this junk.

Maybe some don't

People don't talk about it they just do it.

It's tough.

tlguy, It has to be THE RIGHT CHIHUAHUA....aka a politician's dog. It is sad so much destruction to wildlife and domestic animals...guess they are waiting for more human deaths to occur?

There are over 5,500 state assembly persons in the USA and about 2,000 state senators in the USA along with 535 Federal congressional office persons, all serving as elected political legislatures and we are held up by a handful of federal judges be they liberal or conservative. The judicial system in many ways is protected or immune from being replaced on a regular basis and it seems their major functions in todays world is to cause lengthy, unwanted and expensive delays. We have made the judicial system the "go to" place for activists to disrupt the policy creating abilities of our thousands of elected politicians. Many talk about how terrible our political system is today but in reality much of our dysfunction can be created by a handful of people and we have very limited capabilities to counter those actions.

Bryce

Of course the weather played a factor as did beaver prices. The point is the quota is some arbitrary number than is a long place from a number that will hurt the population. Unfortunately, we don’t have folks that can articulate that in the meeting so the guys in the north had to beaver trap without being able to use their unused otter permits. They closed the season early and the WTA was the one to make the motion.

And if we are not hitting the quota, then let’s have a discussion about the bag limit. Should we increase it to 3, 4, or 10? I bet with the increase in beaver harvest, there was an increase in folks that had multiple incidental otter. Let’s work to reduce it. That is the cost when folks refuse to use the data that is provided to us. At some point long before we start to lower the otter population, guys will start to complain about otter number. It will happen as we increase the pressure on otter populations. Let’s at least get to that point.

I'll explain. Those state governments that defy federal marijuana regulations WANT marijuana deregulated so they go ahead and do it. If they really wanted to manage their wildlife (wolf) populations for the benefit of their citizens they would be making a similar push to do so. The Federal regulations protecting wolves from active management by the states is a very handy excuse for those state agencies to say "it's out of our hands, nothing we can do".

Not sure what all that otter talk has to do w/ wolves, but carry on..

The point is that if the WTA and WCC fail to understand and use the science on otter, how are they ever going to effectively help on a political hot potato issue like wolves?

In many ways, the true waste with both species is buried. Never sees the light of day due to the states mismanagement.

Let’s pivot back to wolves a little. Below is a picture of 10 wolves in Wisconsin in one food plot. Picture comes the Lincoln/Langlade county line next to Ackley State Wildlife Area. Should this even be possible? The state’s population model says we only have about a thousand wolves here. Photo courtesy of the FB page Wisconsin Citizen Wolf Count.

food plots in the middle of the woods is like setting the dinner table for wolves

It’s just one picture. What can we gain from a single picture? How about another from the previous year from similar location. Here you go. What conclusions can we make. Looks like only captured 8 in this one.

I would conclude that there is a pack living in the area. I'd like to know if those wolves are there every day or just something like once a week.

In my area when wolves move in, deer move out. So I would guess they are not there every day. But you can bet they will check it again when their normal travel circuit gets them back in the area.

Unless you have collar GPS, I am not sure how to calculate how much time they spend in that area. I guess the first question if they even get picked up on the survey of that unit. Looks like it falls in survey block 72. Anyone have the data for that survey block? What does our DNR tell us?

With a lot of the forested area of northern WI aging out the prey concentrate where the new growth is, ( forestry or food plots) and that also concentrates the predators during the fall and winter. In the spring the females expand out to bare their young and are preyed upon by many predators. Miles are nothing to large predators when it comes to finding food sources.

Bryce

Based on the DNR Wolf report, it says this county has a decent population of prey (deer). The county shows 32/sq mile.
https://widnr.widen.net/s/tlkjlrrhr7/wisconsin_gray_wolf_report_2023

I don't know of any "northern county" that has 32 deeer per square mile. On the other hand if we don't want wolves we best not show that large packs of wolves are not lowering the deer herd. Then the discussion will shift to all the other factors lowering the deer herd size, of which there are many but not as hot as wolves are.

Bryce

It's in the DNR Report I posted Bryce. Its from the 2022-2023 report. They have not released the report for 23-24. Are you saying they have that number incorrect as well?
Here is a close up of the picture on page 25. Langlade says 32/sq mile. Lincoln neighboring county is only 29.



Now I did pull the Deer Metrics page for Langlade county to get an updated population. https://apps.dnr.wi.gov/deermetrics/PrintReport.aspx

That shows a population estimate of 23639(page 9). With total deer habitat of 769 sq miles, that equals a deer density of 30.7/sq mile so it does look like it has fallen a little.