Beckie Gaskill

Dead cattle, sheep, and horses that can easily be confirmed as wolf kills by federal agents are the most visible and “accountable” losses suffered by producers.
That information reaches the public. An “X” amount of money was paid out for “X” number of dead livestock for the year. What’s less talked about – and known – outside of livestock circles is the extensive impact on livestock that encounter wolves, but are not killed.

The Wisconsin Citizen Wolf Count Facebook group began logging trail camera photos of wolves by township and county in February 2023 after group leaders repeatedly asked the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to take up this type of effort.
When the DNR passed on his suggestion, group leader Corky Meyer, of Boltonville, decided he would take it upon himself to gather this information. Meyer has been a member of a number of conservation groups for decades and has closely followed the wolf conflict issue.
“In talking with the DNR, they said it would never work,” Meyer said. “In February of ’23, I said, ‘Aw, heck, I’ll do it myself.’”

Wolf conflicts with livestock and pets are running ahead of 2023 at this point of the year. Part of that could be increasing wolf populations, or wolves moving closer to inhabited areas as pack areas fill up in wilder parts of Wisconsin.

Part of this change also could be that wolves are simply hungrier this year than last after an open winter that might have made it more difficult for wolves to kill deer. Deep snowpack favors wolves over deer. With the past mild winter, deer were not as easy of a target as they were in the winter of 2022-23, one of the more severe winters in the northern tier of counties in recent memory.