Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Ill be dammed-we reached the wolf quota early

Ya Chehalis it's a town in wa state! Thanks for the well wishes

Problem is simple...carrying capacity...BrentD your are off base...if controlled properly wolves would not be an issue. However, when calf n fawn recruitment is in the 25% zone and each wolf eats roughly 4lbs of meat per day n there are 3000 the math gets real simple...sorry for all you folks who think they're cute..Disney is the other way..4x3000= 12,000lbs hummmm...those consumption stats are as stated by national biologists...ok, so an ave doe weighs 90lbs bones in..reality is more like 50 edible by the cute fluffy thing....12,0000/50= 240 deer per day...yep they are out of chow...that's what I don't get about folks...math really works...all my life I've been quiet listening to idiots tell me how to live..done with that..I served my life as a Green Beret n retire w/ my line of duty injuries so I decided to voice my opinion from now on... So I'm not sure where you call home BrentD but I live in Washington n hunt Idaho/ Montana n Wyoming ...so again I can voice my opinion cuz I live here...you sir have bumped your noggin....we need to kill over 60% of the predators to get ungulate growth...MN did great w/ their quota but didn't make a dent.. I suggest reading some scientific journals to get some facts...

Cuernos
bizarre indeed. If you want to read science, would you like me to send you the articles? I've been editor for some of them, read plenty of them, and generally have a fair understanding of the issue.

But let's start with the easy part. How, over the millennia, have deer and elk managed to survive and even thrive, before we got modern predator "management" up and running?

And, then, just to focus on a particular natural laboratory, how DID all those wolves AND deer increase so many fold over the last 40-50 yrs in Northeast Minnesota?

You like math, I like math, so, let's see you work it up.

Brent,

Seriously dude get out and walk the woods, some areas are so over run by wolves that all you see is wolf scat with deer hair in in and this is section after section of federal lands. There is no back stop to prevent the wolves from over populating. You may ask why aren't they as big of a problem in Canada? Good question: fact is humans are subsidizing the wolves diet by planting livestock which they fall back on when deer numbers get too low, a problem you don't have in Canada (at least in the Northern Forest areas).

Our camp used to hunt near Lake of the Woods, there has been wolves up there like the North Shore for decades - problem is the wolf sign is multiples of what it once was and now deer hunting is almost a fruitless activity. During the tough winters (which we haven't had for a number of years) wolves came in and knocked down a yard of deer in a night (might have been 8-15 deer). We would go into these yards and find one or two eaten deer and the rest were maybe partially eaten or not eaten at all. You can't tell me hunting can cause that same kind of effect, NO WAY. That kind of hunting takes many years to bounce back - they were killing a massive amount of animals.

You seem like a smart guy but you need to get in the woods and recognize reality, these cute fuzzy creatures need controlling in a major way!

cfran,
I've been out in the woods since I could walk. I spent 20 yrs in wolf country. Wolved definitely have an effect on deer, but the extermination you want to believe they cause - just isn't so. Believe what you want, but if your deer herds are way down, your wolf numbers will be too.

You really need to revisit your thinking if you really believe wolves are subsidized by livestock. Google up Carter Niemeyer and read his book. He has done more walking in the woods than any 5 of us. And shot more wolves, and followed more wolves, and analyzes more "wolf kills" on livestock and game than any other human being - bar none.

You will believe what you believe, but the facts are quite different. Hunting is a much bigger impact on deer than wolves are.

It has been suggested and I've read that a single wolf will take about 7 deer individually each winter. Multiply that times a pack of 8 and tell me that hunters take that many. Not.

My friend who has a cabin in Northern WI found a wolf den this spring and put up a trail camera (this was april and may), by June he had 38 fawns on camera being taken back to the den by wolves. Come on smart guy, tell me again hunters do this much damage . . .

Many of those fawns would have died anyway. Fawn survival is way below 50%. Do you understand additive versus nonadditive mortality?

Hunters tagged 151,000 deer in Minnesota since 7 November this year. And of course, some were shot and lost and some were not reported etc. Thus the real number is well above 151,000. Almost all of those are mature, breeding animals, not new born fawns. Hence, they are animals that would have a huge impact on the next year's population growth (unlike the 38 fawns).

So, let's figure, with bowhunters and lost hunter-killed deer, say 180,000 deer/yr. That's pretty a pretty conservative estimate.

and the funny thing is, when hunters start running out of deer, they don't starve, lose their children, or fail to breed like wolves do either.

Here, like Cuernos "Horns" suggested, read some of the science - look up some names like David Mech, Rolf Petersen, Carter Niemeyer (not really science this one, but lots of in-field experience and knowledge), and Kauffman, Scott, Ripple, Beschta for you western guys. Lots to learn and understand. Lots of facts, lots of unknowns too. But let's give up the armchair diagnoses of wolf-plagues.

Fawn survival is low because of predator impact, get a clue Brent. Surely bears/yotes play a part as well. But fact is when wolves establish a home range in an area with a decent deer population they hammer the fawns. These fawns wern't sick, they were picking them off the ground when does were birthing (that two week period where the fawns just hang low without their mother).

You're completely grasping at straws, sorry.

You remind me of a democrat, it's the way you rationalize things - my hunch is I'm right.

Then they leave and go somewhere else. That is exactly why wolf numbers are way up in central Wisconsin. I know, I have land in Shawano co. There was never a wolf seen there. I've had family there over 100 years. Never heard of a wolf till 5 years ago. Many other reports of wolf cam pics in the area too. Ya see, deer might get out of the area and go 2 miles. Wolves have no problem going all over. Collared wolves have been reported in about every county in Wis. ( wolves coming to IOWA!!!! Brent!! ) gotta rub it in a bit. Iowa boys would get a wake up call of their lives. A wolf was found dead in Indiana that came from northern Wis. When they establish, with lots of deer and rabbits just give it 5 years. They have been in every county in Wis, I think. That tells me they are starting to establish numbers cause northern Wis is chock full of wolves. Bear baiters were getting Lots of pics of wolves with mange. Again, too many wolves. Even eating donuts. I think the best thing is to quota 25 % of wolf population. Keep numbers down, deer numbers up. Happy hunters, ( doe tags mandatory to keep woods from going bare) happy wolves cause there is food for the wolves that are still there. Brent , I don't hate wolves.

I don't hate them either but they are waaaay out of control in MN.

ihookem, according to cfran, NOT. He still has millions of wolves and no deer.

cfran, again, you need to look up additive and nonadditive mortality. Then come back. No grasping at straws, just simple logic and facts. Get some, come back.

But you and I both know, you will NEVER do it.

When I was a little feller, hunting hare in the thickets, we actually wore "stringers" to drag our bunnies as we shot them. I remember each of us dragging up to 20 bunnies each. There were grouse and bunnies everywhere! Put a bunch of guys in the back of a pickup and we all had our grouse limits (and some) in an hour just by driving a local back road. If we saw any kind of raptor in the field, it was immediately killed as a "chicken hawk." Anybody guessing at the main factor yet?

All we have to do to bring back those kind of numbers is the return of widespread use of DDT. It ain't wolves suppressing small game.

But of course, we decided that it is good to have predators, be they avian or earthbound, for so many reasons that it would take one days to cite them all. And well, DDT, Do I really need to get into that? Any DDT lovers here?

And, as one who walks NE MN forests almost every day, there are lots of very healthy deer around. Bears, coyote, and fox kill more whitetail fawns than wolves kill. In fact, wolves suppress the most voracious predator of fawns; coyote. For instance, suppression of coyote in Jellystone has allowed pronghorn pops to rebound. Oh wait!! There are no deer left in MInnesota. Hunters stay away.

Careful, $100, there are quite a few DDT fans here. Quite a few. Sadly.

I have a VERY hard time believing hunters lose 30K deer a year. How did you come up with that number?

Its "DDT-lover" Brent. But you R probably right.

The old man said there was nothing wrong with it; he got covered in the stuff many times while in Okinawa and Japan (WWII). Mom used to spread the stuff around the house, on carpets and such, to keep the ants out. I breathed lots of it, while playing in front of the TV with the mercury that the dentist gave me. And hell, I turned out OK.

Tz, that's adding in bowkills (tagged and untagged). And bowkills is a totally wildassed guess on my part.

The OFFICIAL kill for GUNS from 7 November until yesterday is 151k. So we have to add to that
1. Deer shot and lost - how about 5%? I don't think that is unreasonable. that would be 7500, let's call it 7k for shorthand
2. Deer not reported - I bet this number is bigger than shot and lost, but let's say 5k
3. All deer shot and tagged and reported by bowhunters, plus lost by bowhunters, plus shot and not reported by bowhunters. That has to be easily 17k and probably a whole bunch more. So that gets you to 180k right there.

I'm sure you could come up with better estimates and I'd welcome them. At least the reported bowkills must be available on the net somewhere, but I didn't look. I just found the 151k gun kills and figured good enough for this purpose.

FWIW, deer killed by cars tends to be very very close to deer killed by hunters in states where I have done some comparisons.

Yep and don't forget that half the state doesn't have wolves, yet anyway. Northern MN probably accounted for less than half of the harvest numbers by hunters. Wolves outstrip hunters take where wolves live, it's not even a debate.

He's also clueless with regard to hunters not taking fawns, they probably account for 30%+ of the anterless harvest.

cfran, do you still call'em fawns when at least half of them are pregnant?

You're reading too much into this. I know there is scientific documentation of mortality. Nobody is saying there are millions of wolves. But the fact is, nobody know how many there really are so the scientific studies can't possibly be more than that...studies.

But I just don't understand why you fail to recognize that the wolves ARE having an impact in the woods of MN and WI. Reading all the studies in the world doesn't do much for the pepole that are in the woods on a nearly daily basis and seeing the wildlife disappear, move, die, whatever you want to call it, in the area they hunt. I know your fall back answer is "what are they eating?" Well, they're still eating deer. That is why the population of deer keeps getting smaller.

Brent, the wolves ARE having a large impact on the deer population. Plain and simple. Yes, the bears are as well. More than I think they get credit for.

I don't think most people on this discussion hate wolves. I sure don't They very cool animals but have been unchecked for 40 years. Clearly they're bodering if not over the point of being overpopulated. I don't know that number, but the last 5-8 years, in the areas I frequent the impact is noticable.

Do you have a study on the "lost" animals from hunters? I'm not being a smart ass, I really want to see it. I have a hard time believing that hunters in MN lose 30K deer annualy.