Your not sure how we do it

We give out a possible 100,000 or more tags with no quota.

Are you guys telling me you havent collected enough data over the years?

Why do you need a peer reviewed study and what makes you think anyone would want to use it outside of Wisconsin? We've managed to increase our cat harvest 4 fold since I was a kid. My suspicion is they used the data they have been collecting for the last 30 40 years to justify it. You'll never find out what you potential is with a "quota" or limited tags.

In a way you still have a quota…it is just administered through a bag limit and season length. I am betting there was a time they came close to lowering your bag limit for cats or times they should have increased bag limit but didn’t because they were thinking about the total take(or quota). Wasn’t that the case with fisher and reason they lowered bag limit? But that also comes with waste as you truly never see the potential either as they must account for the worst case—an extended period of high prices and renewed interest. One must remove the bag limits and season lengths to really say that you do not have a quota. Southern states that have no limit and liberal season know they will never come close to the quota they have.

To me, quota gets a bad rap. Really it shouldn’t be anything more than maximum sustainable harvest. White and Boco use it up on their trap line. Why shouldn’t we use down here? I think they have a little more consistency in their maximum sustainable harvest than the lower 48 state. Man just seems to have had a bigger impact down here, but I could be wrong.

Interest in WI science? I don’t know. We sure get blame for all the past poor science we put out. Wouldn’t it be nice to give out some that trappers could see the benefit from or use to impact their management of species in their state? Problem is trappers will probably not be paying attention to utilize. Even MN might be able to use our future otter science at some point to get an extension on their season, but one will need to be paying attention. But I won’t hold my breath as I see our NR science still has not rubbed off on MN yet.

The changes that were made to our season structure, going from one time period to 2 probably has had a impact in draw rates decreasing.

I don't find the cat population has anything to do with the wolf problems. Cats are more likely to prey on small game, i.e. hare, grouse, or other rodents. Not elk, deer or the like, that wolves prey on.

Cats can be and are hard on just dropped fawns.

who has the video out of Portage County for the 2.5 yr old buck killed by wolves in front of a bow hunter, that got it on tape.

And the bears,coyotes,foxes.

Here is the mortality study on fawns in the north woods from 2013/4:

Bear 2
Bobcat 4
Coyote 2
Wolves 1

That tells me bears are twice as hard on fawn while bobcat are 4 times as hard on fawns in comparison to wolves. Should we go back to the original bobcat and bear population goals for those species as well?

http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/wildlifehabitat/research/documents/Deer_Annual_Report_2013_2014.pdf

Do you have a link to wolf depredation on adult deer? Or elk. It's easier for me to have you locate the info than I. lol

What about injuries or deaths on birddogs & hounds? Wolves vs. bobcats? See where I'm going with this?

Coyotes are pretty stable in the north.
Bear? The new management goal is 18K roughly which is about 50% higher than the older goal of 12K
Wolves go from 350 to 850 (both are the February minimum population estimates) and the rancor and angst about shredding our deer population is huge, but, but we add 6,000 bears to the landscape and we hear not a peep. It probably reflects that bears have a much larger economic impact and engages more hunters, baiters, hound groups and resorts etc. than do wolves. People have been trained and taught to hate wolves but no so much bears.
With the number of yotes remaining in wolf country they probably kill many fold the deer that wolves do.
What wolves do is change the behavior of prey species when they are in the area, more so than bear, cats and yotes. Wolves are probably the most aggressive predator on adult deer of the 4 but dead fawns don't grow too fast.

Bryce

did you guys account for all the bears that wolves are killing? north of 64 there are plenty of bears drug out of their winter dens by wolves, killed and ate before they wake up. cant blame the wolves, there's no deer left to hunt for them either.

18,000 bear? You want one behind every tree

How many bear are in WI now

In a way we dont still have a quota. If you look up in the dictionary the definition for quota should read "an arbitrary number picked out of thin air".

I cant tell you the history behind MN's bobcat season but here is what I do know.

I was told several years ago by an individual from the DNR when we hit 250 cats harvested they felt it was enough. If you look at our registered harvest table going back to 83/84 we hit surpassed that number in 84/85 with a minor shortening of season two years later. I dont know the history of why the season was shortened but I'd wager it wasn't because of harvest numbers.


We stayed under that 250 threshold until 1996/97 and we spiked from 223 the previous season to 359 that year. That actually surprises me, we had a barn burner of a winter that year.

The next year they cut us from 37 days to 16. Why? I cant say for sure because I wasnt overly involved back then but my guess is we blew out that 250 number.

We went to 109 on the 16 day season of 97/98. The following year we saw an increase in season. Now we vary between 37 and 44 days.

Look at the harvest numbers since we saw the increase in 99/00

206, 231, 250, 544, 483, 631, 590, 890, 702, 853, 884, 1012 and a whopping 1711 in 11/12.

What happened that they felt it was okay to go from 250 to 544? What happened that they felt it was okay to take 1711 and not cut anything the following.

Thank god we didnt have an arbitrary quota pulled out of thin air that would have shut us down long before the potential was realized.

In MN we turn in every carcass and supposedly they are aged, sexed and reproductive tracts are examined. Evidently the collected data after season taken after closure was plugged into their modeling and the model said he we are ok at these levels.

If you want to tackle fisher and what they are thinking be my guest. Look at the harvest levels of recent and they are in line with the long term bell curve. My feeling is their population goal is some where in the higher end of the curve.

Or it could be they are so concerned with the population drop in the core range they are sacrificing the areas with higher densities.

You want a question for the bobcat chat?

Ask them this. What is the variation or is there one of the age structure and sex of cats harvested by hound hunters vs. trappers?

Here is another. First question. Do the natives turn in all carcasses? If so what is the age and sex structure of their harvest.

Once you are able to ascertain the structures of the three groups, are they comparable? If not why?

I think we might be going for two. Only about 29000 in the state according the recent documents. http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/WildlifeHabitat/documents/reports/bearpop2.pdf
LOL

Some good questions 49er. I wonder if we were ever given that type of information in the past or if GLIWC publishes that data. I even wonder if we keep that separate?

49er, was your bag limit always the same during that time frame?

Yes.

I'm sorry, I should have posted a link to the MN registered furbearers.

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/recreation/hunting/trapping/harvest_13-14.pdf

Look at table five. What conclusion could one come up with if dropping the limit would have much effect.

Before the increased permits and harvest about 6-7 years ago the estimate was closer to 25K of bear in WI. I read someplace where WI is thought to be the leading state in black bear numbers. That may change as when populations reach their carrying capacity several forms of population come into play. If there are that many bear in WI that the wolves kill that many and you want fewer bear I would not advocate the wolf predation factor as that could lead to a lot more wolves unless you want them killing more bears.

Bryce