UMN experts say wolves are not cause of decrease in deer population

A hunter lobbying group is pushing for gray wolves to be delisted from the Endangered Species Act after a poor deer hunting season, though experts at the University of Minnesota say other factors are to blame.

According to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the 2023 deer hunting season saw around 158,600 deer killed by hunters, an 8 percent decrease from the previous season and a 14 percent decrease from the five-year average. 

Hunters represented by groups like Hunters for Hunters have lobbied the government to delist wolves so they can be hunted and the deer population can increase. 

On their website, Hunters for Hunters identify themselves as a watchdog organization dedicated to protecting the rights of hunters, landowners and sportsmen and women. 

Austin Homkes, a researcher for the Voyageurs Wolf Project (VWP), lives and works in the project’s study area, and said factors other than wolves are to blame for the decreased deer population.

VWP is a University research project studying activities of wolves during summer and their interactions with their environment in the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem of northern Minnesota near the border of Canada, according to their website.

“It’s been a political thing back and forth for, you know, almost the better part of a decade now, of getting them relisted and back, and it’s just like a pendulum swinging back and forth,” Homkes said. “Right now there’s a strong push to get them delisted so there can be a hunting season.”

According to the International Wolf Center, an education and research organization based out of Ely, wolves in Minnesota were removed from the federal list of Endangered Species in January 2012 after their initial listing in 1974 but were relisted in December 2014. They were removed again in January 2021, which was reversed in February 2022. After the reversal, Minnesota’s gray wolves were classified as a federally protected threatened species.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a threatened species is any species that is likely to become endangered. As such, Minnesota’s gray wolves can only be killed in self-defense.

Homkes said VWP avoids intentionally framing things as right or wrong. Rather, he frames the situation as a matter of values.

“Yes, wolves eat deer,” Homkes said. “There are less of them because of the wolves, and some people don’t like that. They want more deer, and some people like that there are both predators and prey on the landscape.”

Joseph Bump, a professor in the University’s Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology who studies wolves, said gray wolves are listed as threatened in Minnesota but as endangered in Wisconsin and Michigan. 

Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan make up the Northern Great Lakes Region, which has its own population segment of wolves. If one state were to delist gray wolves, the other two would as well. 

“Minnesota might do everything right, have all the numbers, have solid management plans and check all the boxes required by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but if our neighboring states are not meeting the same criteria, wolves are not going to be delisted in the Great Lakes,” Bump said.

According to Bump, Minnesota’s wolf population has remained steady at around 2,700 to 2,900 wolves in recent years, making it the largest population within the lower 48 states.

In the 2023 Minnesota DNR wolf population update, the estimated mid-winter wolf population was 2,919 wolves, plus or minus 800. Based on this, the DNR concluded the statewide wolf population was unchanged from the previous winter, indicating a steady population.

“I don’t think the wolf numbers have increased dramatically based on the data that the Minnesota DNR collects,” Bump said. “I do think more and more people use remote cameras, and I do think that on the scale that people monitor and hunt, you could have areas where there are high densities of wolves if they are denning in the area.”

According to L. David Mech, an adjunct professor in the University’s Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology, wolves occupy roughly 30,000 square miles, or a third of the state.

“There is no reason to think that the wolf density, that is, the number that live in any given area, is going to be the same throughout that whole area,” said Mech, the founder and current vice-chair of the International Wolf Center. “Even though the wolf population in general over the whole state is fairly stable, that doesn’t mean that wolves in any given area are stable.”

Mech said the density of wolves in most areas depends on the density of the deer population, which also varies over a large area. 

According to Homkes, the deer population fluctuates a lot more with the weather than it does with wolf predation. Multiple harsh winters can lead to a decrease in the deer population while milder winters may lead to an increase.

“There’s not an excessive amount of wolves relative to what there’s always been,” Homkes said. “From our estimates the populations are fairly stable, both deer and wolves within normal fluctuations of both predator and prey.” 

Mech, who has worked with wolves since 1958, said he has seen the same kind of fear from hunters, that a poor deer hunting season is the result of wolves, many times before. 

“Wolves and deer have lived together forever,” Mech said. “I think that what we’re seeing by this one group of deer hunters now is the same thing we’ve seen over the last 50, 60 years of my career, and yet we still have deer and we still have wolves. I think we will continue to have them living together for many more decades here.”