The next steps for Wisconsin’s management of the state’s wolf population are coming into focus.
Legislation to establish a statewide population goal within the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources wolf plan passed earlier this year in the Wisconsin Senate and the State Assembly, and is now awaiting consideration from Gov. Tony Evers.
The DNR recently published a revised wolf plan based on the work of the state Wolf Management Committee and nearly 30 participating member agencies and organizations.
The first plan approved in 1999 included four wolf management zones and was designed to provide higher protections for wolves in areas of suitable habitat while allowing for some control in less suitable areas. The revised plan continues the effort to build healthy and sustainable wolf populations with an understanding that meeting objectives based on habit, ecological impact and threat will work by prescribing different plan priorities within six wolf management zones.
“We are committed to managing wolves to a sustainable and healthy population range into the future,” said Samuel Jonas, the Wisconsin DNR wildlife species section supervisor in Madison.
Most of Price County is within Wolf Management Zone 1, which along with Zone 2 and Zone 5, comprise the areas considered primary wolf range with more forests, tribal lands, public lands and the lowest human densities in the state. The area south of U.S. 8 in Price County is located in Zone 3, which along with Zone 4, is considered a secondary range area with more frequent agricultural and developed land, less forested and public land, and higher human density.
The similar objectives in each zone are to apply ecological approaches to sustaining a healthy wolf population but with differences based on the zone features. Each zone responds to wolf-related conflict depending on the zone priorities and the threat to health or human safety.
Harvesting is recommended as a secondary approach in Zones 1, 2 and 5. The Zones 3 and 4 plan is to support wolf populations in the patches of quality habitat when possible, but does not recommend wolf occupancy in the areas of reduced habitat quality due to higher potential for conflict.
Zone 6 is in the south and southwestern parts of the state that are highly agricultural and developed areas to include the urban centers. These factors combine to significantly reduce the habitat quality for wolves and the plan emphasizes wolf-related conflict avoidance with harvesting more available with local control regarding wolf occupancy and density.
The DNR is shifting from a recovery management plan approach to a sustainable and adaptive management approach for wolves, Jonas said. The 1999 management plan was amended in 2006, and very much emphasizes a wolf population that was in recovery throughout the state. A future management plan needs to focus on a post-recovery status, he said.
“We now are confident that wolves have, for the most part, filled their ecological carrying capacity, their biological carrying capacity within the state of Wisconsin, and have now shifted from a recovery status to a sustainable and healthy population,” Jonas said.
The wolf recovery effort started in the early 1960s at a time when wolves, for the most part, were essentially extirpated from the state of Wisconsin, he said. The Federal Endangered Species Act was put into place in 1973 and from that point on those protections helped the wolf population to rebound across North America.
There was a substantial increase in the wolf population of Minnesota by the late 1970s and migration reintroduced the wolf population once again in Wisconsin, he said. Through the 1980s and 1990s the wolf population grew substantially under the protected status, but the population does fluctuate from year-to-year.
“Wolves actually do have very high mortality rates,” Jonas said. “Carnivores as a whole have large mortality rates because they have to spend a lot of energy finding food. If the food is scarce, well then, they don’t fare so well.”
There are many factors with predator-prey relationships, he said. Habitat is important as prey find it easier to escape predators in younger forests and in mild winters.
The mild winter of 2023-24 and lack of snow cover is going to be harsh for predators and wolves, he said. The primary prey, white-tailed deer, have an easier time avoiding them. Wolves fare better in harsh winters when light predators can run on top of hard snow and catch the heavier prey animals like deer that can’t escape as easily.
The mildness or severity of winters cause the predator and prey populations to fluctuate as a result. Another factor impacting wolf populations is when one colony wanders into another and they kill each other for dominance, blending the packs into one.
“It’s a very complex predator-to-prey relationship,” Jonas said. “In some winters, in some years, the prey benefit, and in other years the predators do.”
Wolves are what biologists term a keystone species or keystone predator, he said. Wolves are important to the ecosystem they inhabit as a predator species that preys on animals that forage on forest growth, plants, and that sort of habitat.
The wolves force deer movement which eases the herbivory and over-browse of any given forest area, he said. This acts as a self-correction in areas that are over-abundant with deer by limiting the amount of time they spend browsing these areas.
“If wolves aren’t eating deer, they certainly move the deer around,” Jonas said. “So having wolves on a landscape is incredibly important for that reason. Wolves also prey upon the vulnerable, and by vulnerable I mean sick and weak, and so they remove diseased animals off the landscape as well.”
The population goal legislation was first introduced in the Senate by eight state senators including State Sen. Romaine Quinn, R-25 on March 23, 2023, and passed the Senate 22-10 on Oct. 17, 2023. The bill was introduced in the Assembly by Rep. Chanz Green, where it passed on Jan. 25, 2024.
Current law requires the DNR to implement a wolf management plan, and the new bill would require the DNR to establish a statewide wolf population goal in its wolf management plan, with specific language that if wolves are not listed on the state or federal endangered lists the DNR would implement a management plan that establishes a statewide wolf population goal and to regulate hunting and trapping of wolves.
Rep. Green said that every successful management plan has a goal and while the DNR has worked with the public in establishing its current wolf management plan it does not have a population goal.
“I have talked to a lot of constituents up north about wolf management, and they want to see a population number put in place,” Green said. “Wolves are an issue up in my neck of the woods, and it is time the people in Madison wake up to this reality in Northern Wisconsin.”
Jonas said the DNR does not comment on pending legislation, one way or the other. He would say that it would be the directive of the DNR to have the population goal within the plan and that regarding “population caps,” there are no specific numbers in the bill language and once determined any harvesting permits would be managed by the DNR or other wildlife officials.
“But as of right now, you know, that’s pending legislation and not something we’re going to comment on,” he said.
For more information on the plan visit dnr.wisconsin.gov and under the topic tab select wildlife habitat and then wolf management plan.
Local News
