My great uncle shot a deer by Wells mn way back when they were less common than a Canada goose. The transition zone was, and still is the best deer area of the state. Look at the stats for the transition zones and the harvest numbers are incredible. The top 20 units blow the doors off the rest of the state.
The logging boom and bust cycle really kicked deer numbers up to an unsustainable level. Now with the logging practices, the higher deer numbers in the north and especially the northeast are probably never achievable again without man stepping in and doing great things to make the habitat better suitable for whitetails.
St Louis county is roughly 1,000,000 acres or 6,860 square miles. And shares a 150 mile border with Canada. Has some remote, rugged wilderness areas and enough security cover and limited hunting pressure to allow bucks to reach maturity. Even with less than ideal food sources or other habitat than endless miles of security cover.
Buffalo County is 448,364 acres or 710 square miles. The number of bucks shot per mile aren’t even in the same galaxy as st louis county.
Wolves kill deer and always have. After digging into the stats on it, the wsi, along with liberal seasons and bag limits affected deer numbers way more than wolves. Have had a legally harvest wolf sitting dead on a table at our deer camp in the first wolf season. Had 2 others trapped off our nw corner. It didn’t magically bring the deer numbers back. When the wolves ate themselves out of house and home and starved out, the deer numbers didn’t bounce back like normal. To get deer back there needs to be a balanced approach to managing habitat, along with predator control and less liberal seasons and bag limits. But all that takes time, sacrifice, money and support from hunters, the legislative body and the dnr. Not just delisting wolves, which I am 110% in favor of. But doubt will happen anytime soon.
Like so many on here have said over and over again, it’s about balance. My grandmother’s family was from nw’er mn and they hated wolves. I personally use to really like them from a level of having zero interaction with them. After owning a deer camp for over 2 decades now in wolf country, I’m not as enthusiastic about them. Still like them, but highly dislike how the only way to describe how they are managed in Minnesota currently is, they are not managed at all. There’s nothing scientific with the hands off approach because they are way past the agreed to numbers for delisting. It’s a social tolerance of them being harvested at all. That’s the biggest thing that bothers me personally within this whole discussion, it has zero to do with wolf population size or if they could withstand hunting pressure. It is all about societies emotions and feelings towards one animal that is highly over glamorized and is an unbelievable cash cow for non-profit organizations. That isn’t going to change. There are 50, yes fifty, 501c3 non profit organizations that sue the feds anytime the wolf is close to being delisted. They have deep pockets, and incredible people able to twist the legal and judicial process into knots that take decades to be undone. I hold out little hope there will be any wolf regulations that involve harvest even if they are delisted as long as we have a governor from the dfl party who puts their handpicked people in the appointed roles within the dnr leadership roles. Those leaders within the state government and dnr will never be pro-wolf hunting until there’s a republican in office. And the likelihood of a non dfl governor in this state anytime soon seems extremely unlikely.
Well said! All the more reason to support S.S.S!
