The sunrises and the fishing have been outstanding this week on Lake Michigan. From the tip of Door County to Sturgeon Bay and beyond, salmon and trout continue to put on a show for charter and private anglers alike. / Kevin Naze/For the Door County Advocate
Wolves were delisted from the endangered species list a number of times in the past decade. Assuming the federal government’s ruling survives any court challenges, it’s likely that anyone willing to pay a hefty fee — $110 for application and license for residents, $510 for nonresidents — will be able to get a tag.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I say likely because I just can’t see 1,000-plus people paying that kind of money for a rare chance to shoot a wolf in Wisconsin.
Sure, there may be a couple thousand wolves around come fall, even though the official winter estimate was somewhere between 800 and 900 animals. There are probably more than a million whitetails in the state, and yet we have plenty of hunters saying they rarely see any.
The DNR says the license and application fees will fund wolf depredation payments first and then other costs. I think they would raise more money by offering an application fee of $3 to $5, and a license fee in the $20-$30 range with a lot more tags available, then start the season with a bang — opening day of Wisconsin’s annual nine-day gun deer hunt.
The thought of being able to target one of the critters that gets part of the blame for a smaller northern and central forest deer herd might be enough to lure a good number of lapsed hunters back to the big woods.
As it now stands, the DNR is taking comment on awarding enough tags to harvest somewhere between 142 and 233 wolves, with Chippewa tribes able to make a declaration of up to 50 percent of the final quota within the Ceded Territory.
The DNR is assuming a success rate of 20 percent. I don’t think it’ll even come anywhere close to that, unless only a small number of tags are purchased by those tuned in to the whereabouts of local packs.
The proposed season is set to run from mid-October to the end of February, with firearms, bows and crossbows legal. After the deer season ends, dogs could be used to track or trail wolves and night hunting would become a legal option.
Baiting would be legal for trapping and allowed but restricted for hunting; trappers could use cable restraints.
The DNR’s objective for the first wolf season is to begin to reduce the statewide wolf population, provide hunting and trapping opportunities and monitor, learn and adapt for future seasons.
In my view, the season as proposed will do little to reduce the growing wolf population, leaving hunters even more frustrated.
Anyone interested can fill out an online survey by going to http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/WildlifeHabitat/wolf and clicking the links for “public survey on wolf season.”
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