Many hunters won't get a shot at seeing a wolf

One-half hour before dawn Saturday, wolves will again be hunted in Minnesota. Not like they were a half-century ago, with strychnine and airplane gunners, but by a smattering of deer hunters toting high hopes and high-powered ammunition into the state's north woods.

Mike Lee will be among them. Last year, some of the buddies he hunts deer with just south of Duluth saw a wolf pack run down a doe and kill it.

So he applied for a Department of Natural Resources wolf-hunting permit, and beat roughly 1-in-3 odds to win one of 3,600 permits issued by lottery for the deer season. "I was more than happy to take advantage of the opportunity," said Lee, 40, of Hugo.

But in this most divisive of hunts, which has pitted wolf protectionists nationwide against the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and many of the state's sportsmen and women, Lee, like most deer hunters with wolf permits, knows it's a long shot he'll even see a wolf from his deer stand -- and a longer shot still he'll shoot one.

That's because wolves, while at times appearing ubiquitous to northern Minnesota livestock producers, remain widely dispersed over the northern third of the state -- only about five animals per 40 square miles -- and because many wolves will "disappear," experts say, and move only at night when 160,000 deer hunters decamp to the state's wolf country beginning Saturday.

"I've thought about it a lot," said DNR wolf specialist Dan Stark of Grand Rapids. "My guess is that about 70 wolves will be taken during deer season, out of a quota of 200."

The number of wolves killed during deer hunting, and the number that fall in a second season that begins Nov. 24 to another 2,400 hunters and trappers, will fuel what is likely to be an ongoing debate about how many wolves inhabit Minnesota.

"The DNR talks about how many wolves there are in the state, but they don't know," said Maureen Hackett, a Twin Cities psychiatrist who founded the group Howling for Wolves, which opposes the hunt.

"If only 90 to 100 cattle were killed by wolves in the state last year, could we really have 3,000 wolves?" Hackett said. "I think the population is exaggerated. And holding this hunt without a recent baseline population of wolves is reckless. The DNR has no idea how many wolves Minnesota has, and no idea how many will be killed in this hunt. Because they don't, the hunt shouldn't be held."

The state Supreme Court on Friday declined to hear an appeal by Hackett's group and the Center for Biological Diversity of Tucson, Ariz., asking that the hunt be stopped. But the Humane Society of the United States and the Fund for Animals have notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that they intend to sue the agency in an attempt to return Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan wolves to the Endangered Species List.

The states regained wolf management from the federal government in January -- a move applauded by Julian Brzoznowski, a retired cattleman living near Orr, Minn., about an hour south of International Falls.

Unlike Hackett, Brzoznowski believes far more wolves exist in the state than the DNR says.

"The DNR was wrong about the number of wolves in the state back then, and they're way off now."

Still, Brzoznowski believes only about 40 wolves will be killed during deer season.

"Wolves aren't going to walk by deer stands," he said. "They're too smart for that."

One factor: Wolves are wily

Longtime Minnesota wolf researcher Dave Mech says too many variables exist to predict how many wolves will be killed by the 3,600 deer hunters with wolf permits.

"I won't be surprised by any outcome of the hunt," Mech said. "I wouldn't even guess at the number of wolves that will be killed."

One unknown, he said, is the whereabouts of hunters with wolf permits.

The permits were issued randomly, not by specific area. So it's possible that permit holders will be too concentrated or, conversely, too spread out, to encounter many wolves.

Additionally, wolves are extraordinarily effective at detecting and avoiding people.

"The chance for random encounters between wolves and hunters isn't good," he said.

Another unknown is hunter "effort," said DNR wildlife research manager Lou Cornicelli, noting that Minnesota deer hunters average only about five days a season pursuing whitetails.

"And about 60 percent of the state's deer harvest occurs during the first three days of the season," Cornicelli said. So most wolves killed by deer hunters probably will be felled during that period.

Those that aren't, Mech said, will head for the hills.

"Wolves will sense the presence of hunters and retreat to swamps or deeper into the woods and wait there," he said.

Visions of a fur rug

"We've got about 10 guys who hunt together, and we've always been able to shoot enough deer," he said.

Until last year, when the group bagged only two.

Lee blames an increased presence of wolves in the area for the lack of deer.

"About half of our group saw wolves last season while deer hunting," he said, "including the pack that ran down the doe."

Still, Lee and the three others in his group who drew wolf permits have no special wolf-hunting tactics planned while on the lookout for deer.