Good info.

This is a "suspicion" of what may be happening here, in some areas. My buddy has a trail cam in the midst of wolf territory here. Once with many deer, He hasn't seen a deer on his camera the entire last year. The beaver ponds in that specific area have dried up. It's also a gated Co-op community. The local beaver trapper stated he hasn't trapped any. Have the wolves become that effective?

Wolves are adaptive, they find ways to survive on a new food source when traditional ones dry up. There was an interesting study done in SE on an island where the wolves have almost or completely eradicated the deer population, so the wolves started hunting sea otters. Not a one time opportunistic type of thing, but actually adjusted their diet and hunting methods to effectively eat sea otters

My list of reasons brought up would be in the following order…

#1. Drought. - We’ve been in a drought since 2021 now. Lots of ponds I have trapped beavers in are now dry. A lot either have dug channels or have totally been abandoned. These water levels for the most part are not controlled by beaver dams, but ponds that rely on rainfall and the water table to keep them full.
#2. Trapping pressure - With a good market, and a couple easy winters and long fall/springs to trap.
#3. Predators - Like others I think bears are just as much a preparator as Wolves. With a couple years of droughts the beavers are easier to target, and there are not as many other food sources through the summer for them.
#4. Nuisance harvest - Its a factor, but for the most part pretty localized. The rule did change to make this not require a permit for most situations now.

I think this "used to be" the case. I'm wondering if this still holds true today from what guys are actually seeing . Especially in the thick of wolf country where there are far more hungry wolves than hungry trappers today. Do 4,000 (or whatever we believe the numbers are) wolves (who hunt daily) take more beaver than a handful of aging trappers do, who trap when they feel like it?
Most beaver trappers are aging and slowing down, let alone there's not much financial incentive to it anymore. Especially if they cant drive up to the site. Wolves on the other hand, are low on availability of food supplies nowadays. It "seems" like the wolves have figured out how to hunt and kill beaver more effectively nowadays out of pure necessity to survive.

Just wondering what guys are really seeing out there. I know of one (north of Grand Marais) beaver trapper that seeing a big shift since the deer populations have tanked.

That Elk releasing might be an interesting one to watch Trapper7. I wonder how many are going to come down with a (reported) mysterious illness when they get gobbled up.

My list of reasons brought up would be in the following order…

#1. Drought. - We’ve been in a drought since 2021 now. Lots of ponds I have trapped beavers in are now dry. A lot either have dug channels or have totally been abandoned. These water levels for the most part are not controlled by beaver dams, but ponds that rely on rainfall and the water table to keep them full.
#2. Trapping pressure - With a good market, and a couple easy winters and long fall/springs to trap.
#3. Predators - Like others I think bears are just as much a preparator as Wolves. With a couple years of droughts the beavers are easier to target, and there are not as many other food sources through the summer for them.
#4. Nuisance harvest - Its a factor, but for the most part pretty localized. The rule did change to make this not require a permit for most situations now.

I agree with what most have said in regards to the most impactful variable for beaver populations being drought. I'm up on the Canadian border near Lake of the Woods. It's been very dry here, trapping pressure hasn't been terrible the last couple of years even with a better beaver market. There are plenty of predators around but anecdotally anyhow, I've lost more trapped beavers to bears than wolves. I've also caught wolves in dam crossovers that I assumed were there snooping around for caught beavers. But in general, bears eat more beavers than wolves.

Some food for thought.......a quick online search claimed wolves consume 3-4# of protein per day. 4#x365 days/year = 1,460# meat consumed per year for each wolf. Can we assume an overall average of one deer (likely more fawns than adult deer) will yield 50# of meat for a wolf? This would average out to be approximately 30 deer consumed per wolf each year. With an estimated wolf population of 3,000, that would mean wolves consume approximately 90,000 deer state wide per year. With an estimated wolf population of 10,000, that would put the number of deer consumed by wolves in one year at 300,000. The DNR estimates the current MN deer population at just a touch under 1 million. Hunters harvested just under 200,000 deer in 2024. Of course there are variables to consider such as a wolf's diet coming from proteins other than deer. Anyhow, just some quick and hard numbers but something to think about when hearing "estimated" and "probably" wolf population numbers. The truth is likely somewhere in between the DNR's estimation and a citizens claimed wolf population estimate.