DNR lowers Minnesota wolf-hunt quota
CC/Flickr/MacNeil Lyons
The DNR has set the statewide target harvest of wolves at 220, down from last year’s target of 400.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is lowering the quota for this year’s wolf hunt by 45 percent, reports Sam Cook of the Duluth News Tribune. “With Minnesota’s estimated wolf population down about 25 percent over the past five years, DNR officials will allow fewer wolf hunting and trapping licenses this fall, the agency announced Monday. The DNR has set the statewide target harvest of wolves at 220, down from last year’s target of 400. The season will open Nov. 9, opening day of Minnesota’s firearms deer season. … The wolf season news comes after a DNR announcement earlier this month that about 2,211 wolves are roaming Minnesota’s northern forest. That estimate, based on a winter-long survey, is down about 700 animals from the most recent previous survey in 2008. Although nearly 25 percent lower than the 2008 midpoint estimate of 2,921 wolves, the population still exceeds the state’s minimum goal of at least 1,600 wolves and is above the federal recovery goal of 1,251 to 1,400 animals.”
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DNR Postpones Sale Of Wolf Hunting Licenses
July 30, 2013
(credit: istock)
The state Department of Natural Resources announced the postponement on Tuesday. Sales had been scheduled to begin Saturday.
The state’s Natural Resources Commission this month added the gray wolf to the game species list and scheduled a 6-week hunt for Nov. 15 through Dec. 31.
The DNR says 1,200 wolf hunting licenses will be available. Wolf licenses cost $100 for residents and $500 for nonresidents. The commission said up to 43 wolves in seven Upper Peninsula counties could be killed.
This comes after Gov. Rick Snyder, in May, signed Senate Bill 288, which gives the commission the responsibility to establish hunting seasons for wild game.
The new law is a blow to opponents who gathered more than 250,000 petition signatures seeking a statewide referendum on a measure approved in December that designated the wolf as a game species. Now, the vote will be only a symbolic gesture.
Wolf advocates who accepted the idea of farmers protecting livestock, which is already allowed, recoil at talk of hunting and trapping — which they fear will slash wolf numbers drastically.
Michigan is the sixth state to authorize hunting wolves since federal protections were lifted over the past two years in the western Great Lakes and the Northern Rockies.
About 1,100 wolves have already been killed by hunters and trappers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.
About 650 wolves are currently believed to roam remote areas in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
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