Wolf Map (2018 survey)

If you have cattle and can’t shoot, you need to invest in a couple of donkeys.

I have no dog(lol) in this fight, and I think I more or less agree that wolves should just be managed properly. But I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t know what ‘properly’ means in this case. They should exist but not enough to hurt animals we like(dogs, deer, livestock)? I have no idea, but seriously you guys.

Tom Sawvell wrote:

I feel we have about 3000 too many wolves to consider it a healthy number.

How could you possibly know this, like at all. MN, the entire state, has 3000 too many wolves? How is anyone(DNR included) qualified to say that given the data we have, and by everyone’s account here, don’t have?

Tom Sawvell wrote:

Wolves are supposed to be mythical….keep their numbers low enough that they actually are just that, mythical.

Is this true? This just seems like a really weird thing to say.

What’s too bad is that this problem could absolutely be solved with today’s technology, but there isn’t the funding necessary to do so. There could totally be trail cams with GPS signals and some ability to send the images to a database(or worst case scenario, have them stored the images on an SD card and collect those a couple times a year). It would be pretty trivial for data scientist to train an image recognition model on pictures of wolves to identify which pictures contain wolves and how many, when, where, etc.

It would require quite a few devices, but if wolves roam as much as people say they do, then it would be possible for the areas that are a little easier to get to. But I think those are probably the areas in question anyways(places where people live, raise animals, hunt, etc.)

Of course, there would have to be money and funding and a reason to do that. They could crowd-source the image recognition portion of the project and offer a cash prize on kaggle.com or something and do it fairly cheap.

Of course, that would probably require ‘bleeding heart liberals’ to be involved, and if there’s one thing we know, it’s that liberals are the cause of everyone else’s shortcomings. Oh wait, we talked about that already!

lindyrig79 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Tom Sawvell wrote:</div>
I think we have too many bleeding hearts

Tom I agree with you on this. Most of our society problems can be attributed to the bleeding heart liberals.

I think you misspelled ‘baby boomers’.

Hahahah, okay, you might as well close this thread, is there anything mods can do to just erase this republican echo chamber garbage?

By all means though, keep believing that young progressive minded individuals are the cause of all the problems that started generations ago, I won’t stop you.

There have been at least 3 different wolf sightings (published in the paper, not counting any trail cam pics) in the Sartell/Rice area recently, but only one reflected on the map. Additionally I’m skeptical of the population #’s decreasing over the last 15 years…

OK Phil, I’ll correct that “bleeding hearts liberals” to reflect bleeding heart idiots. I hope you’re not a bleeding heart.

Great response Phil! Very predictable. Let’s see…. dump a bunch of money into GPS tracking devices, trail cams, heck maybe some government installed cameras at your home and cabin so we can really figure this thing out.

Not rocket science. You should have the ability to protect your property and that includes your livestock and pets. This is Minnesota and not remote Alaska, we shouldn’t have to worry about packs of wolves and our safety.

Red Eye wrote:

Just don’t forget the MN DNR has no control over the wolf right now. They are federally protected because of one judge that was tired of listening to the hippies in her courtroom.

Ranchers can’t even protect their cattle in Minnesota. The one good thing is they don’t all have gps chips. There have been plenty that take a nice float down the river or a beautiful train ride across the country.

So you are advocating for poaching animals because you don’t like the rules?

philtickelson wrote:

Tom Sawvell wrote:
Wolves are supposed to be mythical….keep their numbers low enough that they actually are just that, mythical.

Is this true? This just seems like a really weird thing to say.

Last I checked wolves were just supposed to be wolves. They’re wild animals, it can be tricky to train them to stay in their lane. human concepts like myth are just like, not really part of their scene, man.

Just because you have sightings or multiple sightings on your trail camera does not mean that the population is bloated or under-estimated (by the way, really cool trail camera pics of wolves on here). As we all know, and I previously stated, wolves have enormous territories as packs. Even singles roam large areas looking for a new pack. For anyone to say that they know for a fact that the population that the DNR is reporting is false…prove it. The DNR has the tools, man power, and experts working for them. I have to take their word when they report a population study like this. Do I think that the numbers could be slightly off? Sure they could. But I’m not going to sit here and say that this wolf population study is a big bunch of manure because I do not have any data to back that up and I have yet to see anyone back up their statements with other than a random sighting or two.

I do think they should be managed by the state just like any other game or fish population. It can be done in a reasonable manner with a limited lottery and quota system. They are essential to have a healthy ecosystem just like any other apex predator. I also think that ranchers and pet owners should be able to protect themselves and their property that is in danger of wolf predation. If you want to hunt in grouse country with wolves around, be aware that your dog could get picked off. Its like swimming in the ocean – be aware there are sharks around. Just because people want to swim in the ocean doesn’t mean we should eliminate all the sharks. Same concept applies to wolves.

The part that bothers me is when I hear people say hunting them is unethical or unreasonable because they are considered to be “trophy” animals – meaning they aren’t targeted for food. Well heck, what do you think all the coyote hunters are doing? Aint like they’re after yotes for food. Lots of people hunt simply because they enjoy it not because they are meat hunters.

lindyrig79 wrote:

You should have the ability to protect your property and that includes your livestock and pets.

There are a lot of different ways this debate can go but if one thing is for sure, the comment I quoted should probably be a no-brainer thing.

lindyrig79 wrote:

Great response Phil! Very predictable. Let’s see…. dump a bunch of money into GPS tracking devices, trail cams, heck maybe some government installed cameras at your home and cabin so we can really figure this thing out.

Not rocket science. You should have the ability to protect your property and that includes your livestock and pets. This is Minnesota and not remote Alaska, we shouldn’t have to worry about packs of wolves and our safety.

In your vast wisdom and very ill-veiled hatred towards opposing viewpoints, you have managed to confuse ‘should’ and ‘could’. No where did I say they should do this, I just said there’s a very viable way to do this study more scientifically(and actually more efficiently through technology), whether it needs to be done is a different question. And while it’s not rocket science, I would say that trying to accurately gauge the population of such nomadic animals across a large area with little resources is actually pretty complex.

You play the part of the ultra-conservative well, bad-faith arguing is a calling card, because I totally agree with your 2nd point, and in fact we are probably 100% on the same page with how wolves should be managed?

But since I feel differently about liberals, that makes anything I say false to you. Which puts us in quite a predicament, because the next thing I was going to say is that you are normally probably a pretty cool dude, who just places their blame in a group of people that someone told them to, and that makes me sad.

philtickelson wrote:

But since I feel differently about liberals, that makes anything I say false to you.

Not true Phil. I respect much of what you have to say and all your contributions here. Maybe we disagree about wolf management, or maybe we agree more than it seems.

You guys just had a slight connection, I felt it thru the Android.

Fellas are invited to the BBQ bros group anytime

With my barstool biology degree, I have a very hard time taking the DNR estimates at face value. From the late 80’s to now, they show slightly less than a doubling of the population. I live in wolf country and was born/raised in wolf country. My observations don’t compute.

During the late 80’s, I was very much an avid grouse chaser. I used to encounter a pile of wolf scat a few times a year – it was noteworthy. Fast fwd to present day and I can honestly tell you I do not recall the last trail I have walked that did NOT have a pile of wolf crap on it. Seriously, if I use very round numbers, shouldn’t a doubling of the population result in a similar increase of seeing sign?

I was 19-20 yrs old before I ever actually laid eyes on a live wolf, now I average seeing at least one a month. The numbers the dnr spouts just seem non-plausible to me. They have killed deer in my yard, chased my dog into my yard(thank God my wife was able to intervene), and given me chilling encounters while pursuing my dog in the grouse woods (I have been fortunate). To turn me into a potential felon for wanting to protect my dog sure seems wrong to me. If I ever have to choose between the wolf and my pooch, I sure as hell wouldn’t report anything while i was feeding dogs that night….lol.

To the guys that practice the 3S policy, good on ya…..keep it up, and you’re more than welcome around my campfire any time. We have too many.