Monday, November 18, 2013

DNR Wants Wolf Tracking Volunteers - - Big Fun Ahead!

The DNR says it's looking for volunteers who want to "HAVE FUN!" while helping the agency track and count wolves - - but I have to think that some of the "fun" information gathered goes into calculating next year's blood-letting.

This summary sentence about finding good winter tracking volunteers couldn't get more bureaucratic:
Data received from this program is used to supplement DNR surveys and provide the public with opportunity to be involved in determining the status of our forest carnivores.
By the way, the "status of our [wolf[ forest carnivores" right now is 210 killed this season, with another 41 still available for 'harvesting.' More than 80% of the kills are accomplished by the use of traps, followed by a gunshot to the head of the trapped animal.

Last year, the kill was 117.



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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 18, 2013 at 7:17 PM

    This is probably a once in a life time opportunity. A couple more years of this level of killing [harvesting] ..there will be no wolves to track. So if anyone wants to see some real life wolf tracks they better jump on this opportunity quickly before wolf tracks are a thing of the past.

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  2. BoxerNovember 18, 2013 at 11:44 PM

    ya gotta be shittin' me

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  3. MaraNovember 19, 2013 at 6:26 PM

    Actually, I used winter carnivore track survey data collected by DNR staff and volunteers for my Master's thesis. I can't say whether or not some of the information will be used to make determinations about next year's wolf hunt, but I know from experience that it's used to track many species besides wolves and provides valuable information about carnivore counts, species distribution, and community composition.

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