John Weiss
To Linden and Joshua Anderson, trapping a timber wolf was a fascinating experience, one that gave them the satisfaction of fooling a smart, wily animal, and something that actually helped the wolf population by controlling its numbers.
Joshua Anderson, who went to school in Hayfield and now attends Winona State University working on a degree in biology and ecology, got a permit for the state’s first hunting/trapping season, and his father went along to help.
On Jan. 2, they checked snares they set near Itasca State Park. In the last one, there was an 80-pound wolf already dead.
He saw other wolves when they were up north, and then he saw the dead one. “The size of the animal didn’t really hit me until i was there,” he said.
His dad’s reaction was “elation.”
The father and son grew up trapping near Hayfield and enjoy the challenge. “In order to be successful, you really have to know about the animal,” the son said. The permit, one of 6,000 given out even though the state shut off the season after 413 were taken, gave him a chance to learn about wolves, he said.
To trap the wolf, they found a place where people had dumped deer carcasses and where wolves were coming to feed. They set the snare on a trail in the woods.
While those opposed to the season said the DNR didn’t know enough about wolf numbers, he said he believes the numbers that there are at least 3,000 wolves in winter and about 5,000 after the young are born in spring.
There are enough wolves that some seem to be getting mange, comes from an insect that gets under the animal’s skin, and they rub off some fur trying to get rid of the itch. Without that fur, they can die of exposure, he said.
Part of being a good conservation steward is to keep a population in check, not letting it get too big so the population can avoid things such as mange, he said.
Linden Anderson agreed.
He’s trapped many species in this region and likes that challenge. He has to fool a wild animal into stepping into maybe 2 square inches to set off the trap. Traps today kill quickly or hold the animal until the trapper can kill it. The traps don’t have teeth like older ones, he said. “I don’t think it’s nearly as traumatic (for the animal) as people think,” he said.
He also applied for a permit because it’s a novelty, “an opportunity to do something different, try something different,” he said.
Trapping in the snow and cold was hard work, but he said they still enjoyed being out in the north woods. They were some of the last trappers or hunters to get a wolf because the season closed the next day after the 400 limit was reached.
The dead wolf didn’t have an easy life, he said. When they skinned it, they found its haunches had been beat up. “She had been driven out of someplace,” Anderson said.
Hunting and trapping don’t add to the number killed each year but take the place of other ways wolves would die, he said. He trusts the Department of Natural Resources (he is a DNR wildlife technician) and its professionals who say the wolf population is well past its minimum goal.
And like his son, he fears mange. “What happens when mange takes over?” he said. The state could lose many more wolves than are shot or trapped. By controlling that numbers now “we will have lower chances of future problems,” he said.
Anderson has heard the arguments against the season and said “I’m really tired of those people with holier-than-thou attitudes.” He understands the beauty of the wolf just like those opposed to the season. But there are enough of them to allow a season, he said.