So far, well it looks like the wet trend is to continue. Now they are talking 1-2 FEET OF SNOW in next couple days!!! So far this morning I got 3" already. That is not part of the storm coming, or on the radar!!
I don't know about most, but I am starting to get a bit concerned over what may be coming. Guess it will be what it will be. Just not looking good at all so far. This much snow so early. Is surely going to put some extra stress on the deer population up north!!
smokey's Link
smokey's Link
I hope it is warmer than last year and less snow snow and wither leaves early to give the deer a break. A good acorn crop helped a lot of the deer here so what fat they have now will help if spring is early or closer to normal.
Predation, lack of browse, and inability to legally supplement feed will all contribute to the death toll in winter, much more so in moderate to severe winters.
If we get that 1-2 ft of snow they are calling for. The wolves are going to start the winter off with some full bellies. If the wet trend continues. Well, one can only imagine what will happen to the remaining deer herd.
Our food plots (washburn county) are awesome this year, the steady rain really helped. Not much has been eaten yet so those deer will do ok. Don't know if the one corn field nearby got picked but if it didn't that is going to be a magnet.
I tell you what, I invite you as my guest, stay at my place for a few days after the snow is gone in the Spring and I will give you a tour of Northern Bayfield County, we can stop by the Court House and talk to Jason Bodine "Bayfield County Forestry Administrator" ask some questions etc. Then you can do your assessment.
One thing different from the '90s is we are now in a predator pit. The predators climbed due to the prey numbers being high but now reversed. It is too soon to be saying we should have had a bounce back of deer, it will take time but it will not be as fast as in the past IMO.
Last winter was bad all winter and late spring and the year before started out mild but quickly turned bad with freezing rain and then deep prolonged snow cover. The last two springs arrived very late.
The bear season in the '80s were closed due to threats from anti hunters over the State;s management system.
The Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest is nearly 2,400 square miles of timber …. more than 1.5 million acres. That's a lot of land to border.
I don't know Bayfield County. But I can see the same harvest stats available to anyone. There has been wild fluctuations since the 40s, and I think it's safe to say that winters and hunter/poacher harvest, not wolves, caused most of them.
Just looking at the numbers provided to the Bayfield CDAC, you can see that hunters killed more than 100,000 deer in Douglas County in a 10-year period from the late 90s to '07. Now add in some bad winters — and there have been plenty of those — and fewer antlerless tags, and I can easily see why the kill would drop to 5,921 in 2012, and 3,989 last year.
Wolves and bears were around in good numbers during those boom years; they didn't cause the deer harvest to dive from 11K-plus in '91 to just 2,378 two years later. And they didn't stop it from jumping back up to 9,500+ in '95, or 11K+ in '99 or a record 17K+ in '00. In fact with record bear kills, more mild winters and SSS going on, the deer kill in Bayfield County stayed at 10K plus right through 2007. Not too coincidentally, the next two winters were well into the moderate range (with '07-'08 closer to severe). And, as many have stated here in recent years with "icing" and such, even if there wasn't 18 inches on the ground some years, the deer took a hit!
About 24" of snow has fallen here. Due to it being heavy and wet. It has settled quite a bit. Really though it has barely stopped snowing in the last few day. For a little bit then it starts again. There is about 3" on the hood of my truck right now since last night. Much of this now is lake effect, and is snowing right now as I type. Even though it has settled it is still deep.
What shocked me a bit this morning. Was to see a single very large doe walk right into the middle of my bakyard. Maybe 10yds off of my patio. It seemed for nothing more than to nibble on a small leafed branch standing out in the middle of the sea of white. Tried to get a quick pic of it, but the house dogs spotted it. Telling it to leave the yard. I'm guessing the neighbors have not fed much in the last couple days with all the snow.
This much snow already is surely got to affect the deer greatly. How much in the long run we wont know. The positive I see of it many of you wont want to see. Is if this causes an even greater decline in the deer herd. The wolves are going to move more to where there are more deer!! Greater numbers of wolf lovers in the southern part of the state. SO to me it would be great to see a greater number of the wolves move that way. Since most are part of the NIMBY clan ( not in my backyard) Maybe this will help to finally gain more control over an exploding population!
Either way cold and more snow coming. So more damage to the herd is surely to come. Damage they will not be able to recover from this year. Doubt we will see enough of a warm up to melt it all exposing more feed for them.
At least the predators will eat well, for now that is!!
The snow up north is exactly what was not needed this year. I am just thankful there was no ice on the lakes or ice fishing could have been ruined from day 1.
Smokey, more wolves today than in '06-'07 in your area, even with three years of legalized hunting/trapping, a lot of depredation trapping and plenty of illegal kills? I'm asking, not trying to be a wise guy. As for bears, the harvest has been very aggressive in the past decade. More or less bears today than in the mid-00s?
There is no way of them knowing how many deer killed each year. They always want to use that minmum over winter number for everything. Use the max number instead and things change real quick. We all know that canines eat far more when they are growing as well. So once they start eating big that 18 deer a year number goes out the window. Going from 5-700 to 14-1600 makes a huge difference just in the 18 deer number.
Ohh, and by the way. ITS STILL SNOWING!!!!!
There are tens of thousands of black bears and coyotes in Wisconsin. Cumulatively, they likely take as many — or more — fawns than wolves. Ongoing studies in Upper Michigan and Wisconsin have shown as much.
I've got a friend from Door County who hunts Ontonagon County, Michigan, in the heart of wolf (and hard-winter) country. His camp shoots deer every year because they put in a lot of stand time. He said they've seen an increase in daytime deer movement since wolf numbers have grown through the years (his group has been hunting up there for decades). He knows hard winters kill far more deer than wolves, and says it's obvious after severe winters vs. mild winters.
Wolf and bears are everywhere. Our group legally removed 4 bears this year. Hope to bring the coyote numbers down too.
All of the wolves are not helping the herd rebound. The wolves need to be killed in far greater numbers. Once again, the wolf kill rate this year proved without a doubt that the wolf population far exceeds what the WDNR wants people to believe.
WI really needs to introduce wolves to Madison and Door County and then things would happen.
I agree whole heartedly, the low deer population is never do to one issue, it is a combination of things. Because of this we have such a low deer population and a high population of wolves and bears, another bad winter coming up, the deer have know chance to rebound, it will take years for them to come back if they do. Years ago when we had harsh winters, deer loss most understood it would get better in a few year, and it did, but we didn't have all the predator's that we do now, obviously it is having a huge impact on recovery and rebound.
Great idea, maybe they would develop an appetite for liberals;)
Another thing we need in my area is below average precipitation for the next 6 - 9 months. Its brutal trying to get anything accomplished in woods that went from being 30% swamp to 80 % over the last two years. Our swamps are now ponds, our ponds now lakes, and our woods now swamps. Beavers make this even worse, damn things wont go away, had 40 trapped off our 140 acres last winter. Couldn't even tell a dent had been made by this spring. Starting to get really sick of spending more time getting tractors and equipment unstuck than we have actually improving anything.
Naz 's Link
As for more logging, sounds like the Brule River Forest in Douglas County may get some needed work soon:
BRULE, Wis. - An amendment to the Brule River State Forest master plan would adjust the annual allowable timber harvest limit to account for the acquisition of 6,505 acres to the forest since the master plan was approved in 2002, under a proposal by the Department of Natural Resources that is currently open for public comments.
In addition, an updated forest inventory that provided more accurate information on the forest resources found a nearly 2,000 acre backlog of forest management practices including pine plantation thinning, and the thinning of jack pine, aspen, birch, scrub oak, fir, spruce and northern hardwood forests needed to ensure regeneration of those forests.
The 47,000-acre Brule River State Forest is located in eastern Douglas County in northwestern Wisconsin. The forest contains all 44 miles of the Bois Brule River, one of the best known rivers east of the Mississippi and known for more than 100 years as an exceptional trout stream. Management activities are omitted from the river valley and from other unique areas that make land management inappropriate for reasons such as aesthetics, erosion control, or threatened and endangered species habitat.
"The annual allowable harvest is an acreage amount of the forest that is scheduled to be managed to meet specific objectives," said Dave Schulz, Brule River State Forest superintendent. "Forest inventory data is collected for each stand within the state forest and the allowable harvest is calculated by thinning cycles or desired rotation ages for specific forest types and management objectives. For example, to maintain a healthy aspen forest on the Brule the average stand is typically regenerated through a harvest at 55 years old."
The current master plan set the annual allowable harvest level at 600 acres, which the proposed amendment would eliminate. The goal is to expedite harvest to eliminate the backlog and maintain a healthy sustainable forest and eventually reach an annual harvest of just under 1,000 acres annually on the existing and newer acquired properties. The department will accept public comments regarding the proposed amendment through Nov. 30, 2014.
"The amendment does not change the land management classifications, management areas or area objectives of the current master plan, it simply allows adjustments to the number of acres that can be managed in order to meet the plan objectives and ensure sustainable regeneration of forest resources," Schulz said.
Additional information, including the public involvement plan, draft plan amendment and associated background and analysis can be found on by searching the DNR website, dnr.wi.gov for keywords "Brule River" and then clicking on the tab for "management and business."
