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Wolf Population Increases By Thirteen Percent

Brooks Tracy
/
USFWS
Wisconsin held a wolf hunt last winter, but gray wolves are back on the federal endangered species list after a court ruling.

Despite about a hundred and fifty wolves taken in a wolf hunt last winter, Wisconsin’s wolf population has increased. 

Preliminary numbers from the state DNR have put last winter’s population between 746 and 771 wolves.

That’s a thirteen percent increase from the year before, when numbers were as low as 660.    

Carnivore Specialist Dave Macfarland says the number is on the upper end of what biologists expected when they set a hunting quota last year. 

 

“The midpoint of our projection of population change was about a five percent decrease," Macfarland said.  "But again, with the wild population there’s certain elements that we can control, and certain elements that are outside of our control.  And a certain level of variability in any of these projections.”

Macfarland says part of that variability is due to fewer wolves killed as a result of conflicts with humans and livestock than managers predicted.  

Wolves are back on the federal endangered species list, so the count won’t be used to set a quota for another wolf hunt this winter.   But Macfarland says the information is still important.  

 

"In the past three years, the population count data has been used to set harvest quotas," he explained. "But this is population data that we’ve been generating for over 30 years in the state. And it’s one of the key pieces of information that we use to monitor our wolf population.”

Finalized numbers will go into a report for the U.S. fish and Wildlife Service. 

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