Hunters killed 82% more wolves than quota

[Still Waters]

Hunters and trappers participating in Wisconsin’s fourth wolf hunting season killed almost 100 more animals than was allowed under the state’s quota, Paul A. Smith reports for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The state’s Department of Natural Resources issued 1,486 tags to hunters with a quota of 119 wolves. Hunting was closed at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, and hunters had 24 hours to report their kills. The final count: 216 wolves, according to data released by Wisconsin DNR on Thursday.

“It’s easy at this point in the game to say, yeah, maybe we should have closed it a little bit sooner,” said Eric Lobner, DNR Wildlife Management Director, at a press conference, per the Associated Press’ Todd Richmond. “There were so many unknowns about how the season was going to play out. ... How far we went over goal was not necessarily our objective.”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/hunters-kill-82-more-wolves-quota-allowed-wisconsin-180977132/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/03/wisconsin-hunters-kill-216-wolves-less-than-60-hours-uproar

[Wistman]

   Killing is so addictive.

[thedutchiedutch]

I was reading about this the other day and something that stood out to me was that the state had set a quota of 200 wolves, with 119 for hunters who applied for permits with the department and 81 set aside to the Ojibwe Tribes under their treaty rights. But the tribes consider wolves to be sacred and made a deliberate decision not to hunt them, said Dylan Jennings, a spokesman for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, which represents the tribes. The tribes saw their allocation as a way to conserve a large number of the wolves — not to give hunters more animals to kill, he said. The losses are “appalling,” Mr. Jennings said. “There are a lot of people upset about it.” 

Kudos to the Ojibwe tribe !

[+and-then]

12 hours ago, Still Waters said:

The state’s Department of Natural Resources issued 1,486 tags to hunters with a quota of 119 wolves.

I don't understand this sentence.  Why would they issue so many "tags"?  Am I missing something?  I thought a "tag" was issued for each culled animal.  Why issue over 7 times the allowed number of animals to be culled?

[openozy]

I don't get it either, hunting during the wolves breeding season is not right imo. The tag thing is mismanaged with no excuse given.

Edited March 4, 2021 by openozy