[Cork Dust]

If you are allowed to annually hunt wolves and not let them bounce back, population can be controlled. With a proper annual quota, you can stabilize population, reduce it, and if you want to, you can essentially wipe out the entire wolf population, as has happened in the past.

Thanks for rephrasing your contentions to actually make sense. You still left out the reality the the legislature in Wisconsin passed a law that required a wolf hunt immediately after the wolves were delisted...by the USFWS. I don't seem to recall this occurring in Michigan...probably the MDNR's fault though and not related to ANYTHING else. Where was Jack Begman when we needed him? Was he still running a his start-up private Medical Supply company while serving as a full time Marine officer????

 

[tenring]

Minnesota has been essentially flat (at carrying capacity) for about 10 years - at ~2,400 wolves.
The current range of wolves is Minnesota is about 43,000 square mile.

So about 1 wolf per 18 sq. miles.


The UP is about 16,500 sq. miles.
At ~917 wolves Michigan would be at the same population density where Minnesota has flat lined.

Biomass per square mile is key. Wolves have been in minnesota for decades. It appears a number of years ago minnesota wolves knocked down their prey enough to reach a sort of equilibrium in wolf density. Guess what, wolves not happy with the amount of prey in minnesota, dispersed to other areas. A lot of them ended up in wisconsin and michigan. Wisconsin wolf population saw significant growth over the past 14 years, despite over 740 killed in four different managed hunts since 2012. Wisconsin deer herd down in wolf zone, while wolf numbers up. In Michigan, UP deer numbers way down, DNR estimated wolf numbers flat.

How many UP wolves have dispersed over the past 14 years? I'm guessing the packs of wolves that line the wisconsin state line are a bit of deterrent for wolves looking to leave the UP. Maybe wolves have not needed to disperse because there still is plenty of food in the UP. Despite the large decline in the deer population in the UP over the past couple decades, there still is a significant biomass of deer to feed a lot of wolves and increase their density. The deer just tend to be more concentrated in certain counties and areas. Maybe the wolf population in the UP will eventually get high enough that they will eat themselves into extinction in the UP. Not good for the deer herd.

 

[pescadero]

Biomass per square mile is key.

No, it is just one of many factors in carrying capacity.

Limited physical space with unlimited prey? Population still flat lines.

 

[tenring]

No, it is just one of many factors in carrying capacity.

Limited physical space with unlimited prey? Population still flat lines.

It is the primary factor of wolf density. Wolf density may not even have peaked in the U.P. Surely, wolf density is higher than 14 years ago.

 

[tenring]

Limited physical space with unlimited prey? Population still flat lines.

Please explain this. We are talking about the DNR saying the wolf population is essentially unchanged the past 14 years, with the exception of the uptick this year.

 

[Lightfoot]

Intraspecies conflict, litter sizes, dispersal come to mind.

 

[Cork Dust]

Biomass per square mile is key. Wolves have been in minnesota for decades. It appears a number of years ago minnesota wolves knocked down their prey enough to reach a sort of equilibrium in wolf density. Guess what, wolves not happy with the amount of prey in minnesota, dispersed to other areas. A lot of them ended up in wisconsin and michigan. Wisconsin wolf population saw significant growth over the past 14 years, despite over 740 killed in four different managed hunts since 2012. Wisconsin deer herd down in wolf zone, while wolf numbers up. In Michigan, UP deer numbers way down, DNR estimated wolf numbers flat.

How many UP wolves have dispersed over the past 14 years? I'm guessing the packs of wolves that line the wisconsin state line are a bit of deterrent for wolves looking to leave the UP. Maybe wolves have not needed to disperse because there still is plenty of food in the UP. Despite the large decline in the deer population in the UP over the past couple decades, there still is a significant biomass of deer to feed a lot of wolves and increase their density. The deer just tend to be more concentrated in certain counties and areas. Maybe the wolf population in the UP will eventually get high enough that they will eat themselves into extinction in the UP. Not good for the deer herd.

Just keep in mind that biomass values can be equivalent for prey at levels with a lot of young individuals that sum to the same overall value as a smaller density of large older animals. For a facultative predator like wolves, the direct impact of these two prey arrays is directly related to energy expended in search and capture: They have to find prey, pursue it, kill it and then reconverge to consume it. Until that last time-step occurs, they derive NO benefit from the other individual incremental energy expenditures...Or, why predators' numbers decline along with prey in U.P. winters. Black bears are the only deer predator that is largely unimpactd by this.

Other than your implications that dispersal is somehow a concious decision that wolves arrive at individually, that is basically how predator-prey relationships work. If you read the MDNR wolf management plan, you will note that the agency is actually required by the provisions of the Endangered Species Act to manage the deer population to maintain a prey base for wolf survival. in a a$$ backwards way, they are obligated to hold deer numbers above wolf carrying capacity over time...which takes us full-circle to the DMI and the U.P. Habitat Work Group initiatives.

You alos touch on the false assumption that the federal judge made when she ruled to relist wolves nationally again...dispersal is not simply a function of building numbers up to a too high level, like banging on a ketchup bottle whose contents are so congealed that they will not flow readily. Emigration is a continual function in mammal populations. The rate of emigration, seasonally or annually, is influenced by both prey availabitlity and internal social community structure for wolves. A mosaic of patchy habitat array that is adequate for survival as well as large road corridors and dense clusters of humans and human activity impact wolve emigration negatively as well.

The other emigration corridor you completely exclude in your analysis is emigration into Ontario. Wolves were noted along the Canadian shore of the St. Marys River well prior their migration into the western U.P. In fact, the MDNR actually assumed that this would be the route they would use to recolonize the U.P.

So, while you are musing on where and how Great Lakes gray wolves came from, please explain how the adult wolf killed in Calhoun county arrived there, since genetic analysis indicated it was related to the other Great Lakes Wolf recovery unit populations? How did the adult gray wolf that was killed a handful of months back west of Colorado Springs, Colorado in a coyote trap set on private ranch land that was also a Great Lakes gray wolf origin animal end up there? Odd how a coyote leg hold trap would result in an adult gray wolf's death...but that is another question. Did I mention that the Calhoun county animal also had evidence that it had been held in a leg hold trap?

 

[LaurieBuster]

Just keep in mind that biomass values can be equivalent for prey at levels with a lot of young individuals that sum to the same overall value as a smaller density of large older animals. For a facultative predator like wolves, the direct impact of these two prey arrays is directly related to energy expended in search and capture: They have to find prey, pursue it, kill it and then reconverge to consume it. Until that last time-step occurs, they derive NO benefit from the other individual incremental energy expenditures...Or, why predators' numbers decline along with prey in U.P. winters. Black bears are the only deer predator that is largely unimpactd by this.

Other than your implications that dispersal is somehow a concious decision that wolves arrive at individually, that is basically how predator-prey relationships work. If you read the MDNR wolf management plan, you will note that the agency is actually required by the provisions of the Endangered Species Act to manage the deer population to maintain a prey base for wolf survival. in a a$$ backwards way, they are obligated to hold deer numbers above wolf carrying capacity over time...which takes us full-circle to the DMI and the U.P. Habitat Work Group initiatives.

You alos touch on the false assumption that the federal judge made when she ruled to relist wolves nationally again...dispersal is not simply a function of building numbers up to a too high level, like banging on a ketchup bottle whose contents are so congealed that they will not flow readily. Emigration is a continual function in mammal populations. The rate of emigration, seasonally or annually, is influenced by both prey availabitlity and internal social community structure for wolves. A mosaic of patchy habitat array that is adequate for survival as well as large road corridors and dense clusters of humans and human activity impact wolve emigration negatively as well.

The other emigration corridor you completely exclude in your analysis is emigration into Ontario. Wolves were noted along the Canadian shore of the St. Marys River well prior their migration into the western U.P. In fact, the MDNR actually assumed that this would be the route they would use to recolonize the U.P.

So, while you are musing on where and how Great Lakes gray wolves came from, please explain how the adult wolf killed in Calhoun county arrived there, since genetic analysis indicated it was related to the other Great Lakes Wolf recovery unit populations? How did the adult gray wolf that was killed a handful of months back west of Colorado Springs, Colorado in a coyote trap set on private ranch land that was also a Great Lakes gray wolf origin animal end up there? Odd how a coyote leg hold trap would result in an adult gray wolf's death...but that is another question. Did I mention that the Calhoun county animal also had evidence that it had been held in a leg hold trap?

I remember reading somewhere recently maybe a year back of a wolf collared in the UP that travelled out to canada i want to say Alberta. I think it was shot dead not sure but they defintely travel hundred or thousands of miles

 

[Cork Dust]

I remember reading somewhere recently maybe a year back of a wolf collared in the UP that travelled out to canada i want to say Alberta. I think it was shot dead not sure but they defintely travel hundred or thousands of miles

There is one other secondary benefit of predators as a selction pressure on whitetail populations, potential reduction in rate of spread of CWD. The Yellowstone Park analysis, now that a CWD positive mule deer carcass was discovered on The Promontory in the southeaster basin segment of Yellowstone Lake is being carefully followed not to determine specific impacts of wolf predation on rate of spread and incidence...

If you ran a cluster analysis attempting to assess the degree of connectedness of captive cervid facilities and CWD spread and transmission rate(s), I suspect the resulting relationship would be strongly positive, at minimum...

 

[Waif]

.

 

[Waif]

There is one other secondary benefit of predators as a selction pressure on whitetail populations, potential reduction in rate of spread of CWD. The Yellowstone Park analysis, now that a CWD positive mule deer carcass was discovered on The Promontory in the southeaster basin segment of Yellowstone Lake is being carefully followed not to determine specific impacts of wolf predation on rate of spread and incidence...

If you ran a cluster analysis attempting to assess the degree of connectedness of captive cervid facilities and CWD spread and transmission rate(s), I suspect the resulting relationship would be strongly positive, at minimum... View attachment 963302

[The Yellowstone Park analysis, now that a CWD positive mule deer carcass was discovered on The Promontory in the southeaster basin segment of Yellowstone Lake is being carefully followed not to determine specific impacts of wolf predation on rate of spread and incidence...]

" Carefully followed not to determine specific impacts of wolf predations"
Reads like a highly scientific approach of denial by bean counters once again.
Who is getting paid and by what entity (s) for not making determinations through the scientific process of not finding fact as usual?

 

[Cork Dust]

[The Yellowstone Park analysis, now that a CWD positive mule deer carcass was discovered on The Promontory in the southeaster basin segment of Yellowstone Lake is being carefully followed not to determine specific impacts of wolf predation on rate of spread and incidence...]

" Carefully followed not to determine specific impacts of wolf predations"
Reads like a highly scientific approach of denial by bean counters once again.
Who is getting paid and by what entity (s) for not making determinations through the scientific process of not finding fact as usual?

The study was initiated AFTER the CWD positive mule deer was found dead a handful of months ago...

Per usual, I have no clue what your personal rigorous scientific analysis is based on, since you cherry picked one sentence out of what you read to make a point that remains irrelevant.

 

[Waif]

The study was initiated AFTER the CWD positive mule deer was found dead a handful of months ago...

Per usual, I have no clue what your personal rigorous scientific analysis is based on, since you cherry picked one sentence out of what you read to make a point that remains irrelevant.

My question you didn't answer is relevant.

If you study C.W.D. from it's earliest documented scabies site origins to todays latest confirmed test you will find the common denominator created and derived from under the guise of science. It is in those paid to play science.
And we still support that today....


You don't understand that you wrote" not" instead of "now". Then defend your ignorance when it is pointed out and declare my point irrelevant.
You know what a figurative ass is don't you?

 

[Cork Dust]

My question you didn't answer is relevant.

If you study C.W.D. from it's earliest documented scabies site origins to todays latest confirmed test you will find the common denominator created and derived from under the guise of science. It is in those paid to play science.
And we still support that today....


You don't understand that you wrote" not" instead of "now". Then defend your ignorance when it is pointed out and declare my point irrelevant.
You know what a figurative ass is don't you?

My question you didn't answer is relevant.

If you study C.W.D. from it's earliest documented scabies site origins to todays latest confirmed test you will find the common denominator created and derived from under the guise of science. It is in those paid to play science.
And we still support that today....


You don't understand that you wrote" not" instead of "now". Then defend your ignorance when it is pointed out and declare my point irrelevant.
You know what a figurative ass is don't you?

You? But that answer would satisfy both the literal and figurative ass headings...

 

[Kash089]

Why only 3 or 4 pups instead of 8. Yellowstone wolves have elk to eat. Elk is much larger than deer so that is likely why.

We have elk herds in UP 🙄