^ this. If we would be getting tax breaks based on the presence of wolves I would be taking my shepherd past my trail camera at a run and claiming it was a wolf. Haha.
Heck, I am the one paying taxes on this land and I would pay MORE taxes if it would get rid of the wolves. Technically speaking, they were on my uncles land, but ours is next door to it a few hundred yards away.
Being a fellow Minnesota resident I was making a commentary rather than a statement. The MN DNR does a press release stating that they will be issuing more tags, what they don't say is that they are not really increasing the actual quota enough to make real results in the expanding wolf population. So it looks like your wolf problem is not going away and have you ever had your tax bill go down?
Ahh I got a different meaning from that, Sorry! I thought you meant it would go from a .0001% chance that the taxes would go down to a .0002% chance since there are now wolves there! Yeah You are right they aren't going anywhere unless they leave for their own reasons...
I know This sucks from the deer hunting standpoint, but can't this be looked at as a good thing? Or is everyone to worried about the deer hunting? Seems a bit on the selfish side. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I wish I could find a good thing. I could care less about seeing them. If you an idea, I am all ears! I am typically the guy who looks at the bright side, but this one has me stumped on where that bright side is!
They keep a herd much healthier than than humans can. They evolved to thin out the weak. They are a blast to see and hear in the woods and will be a huge challenge to take with a bow. I wouldn't trade hunting in wolf territory for anything.
That may be all fine and dandy in Ely, it simply will not work in the southern 2/3rds of the state. The MN DNR needs to take the same stance on wolves that they have on bears. Draw a line and north of that line wolves are managed, south of that line wolves should be non quota where the wolves can be taken without special considerations. The wolf has been protected for too long and there are simply too many of them
I agree that there needs to be regional management plans. The issue is that wolves disperse much more than bears do. That's why we've seen wolves killed in Iowa mistaken for coyotes. There's a happy median between federal protection and open season. The trick is finding the median. I don't believe that 0 wolves is healthy for any MN biota.
I'm far from a wolf hater, but this statement isn't true. Sure, they take out the weak, but they take out the largest and most healthy as well. They aren't picky, they will kill anything they can, especially in the winter. Wolves definitely have a place in the wild, but numbers need to be kept in close check.
I see what you're saying and have seen healthy animals that have been killed. But I would say they will take the easier route when they can. I would hypothesise that if you had 200 deer in an area, and 200 more in an identical area, then let wolves hunt one herd and humans the other for let say 20 years, the herd hunted by wolves would have superior genetics in the end. But my definition of a healthy deer herd (specifically it's density) is probably much different than most hunters. I'd like to see the cedars growing around here again.
I too agree that the wolf needs to be part of the woods. Part of my frustration is the DNR's inability to admit that a large part of the moose population problem is the wolf. They say it is global warming and claim that few collared moose are killed by wolves, well calves don't wear collars. The attempts to collar calves has not gone well it has led to abandonment and even death in some cases. We will see how the deer population recovers up north with the dnr's new plan. There has been a problem getting white pine and cedar regen up north for sure, could it be global warming?
Having met a number of the biologists working on the Moose mortality study (most have little or no direct link to the DNR FWIW), I would say they are doing a more than thorough job of trying to piece the puzzle together. They have and are getting tons of information, but it's a very complicated issue. For one, even if wolves were killing more moose than they had previously (which data does not support), isn't it possible that their increase in kills or success rate can be partially or entirely due to a weakened herd? Some moose have been found that have over 100,000 winter ticks covering their bodies. Enough that a moose would need to completely replace its entire blood supply in the course of a month or so. That kind of energy drain is guaranteed to make them more susceptible to both disease and predation, as well as limiting the number of calves a cow can have. Now add in liver flukes and brain worms carried by deer. Add in hotter summers when a moose starts to sweat at temps over 50*. It's much more complicated than wolves are eating more moose (which again has not statistically been seen that I'm aware of). Also, most if not all of the wolf population growth has been in areas that have not held moose populations. They've always been around here and the area only holds so many packs. Other wolves are good at population density control.
