Wisconsin’s second wolf hunting season is another step closer to being over. The state Department of Natural Resources says it will shut down the zone covering the lower two-thirds of the state Thursday afternoon, after hunters hit harvest quotas in that area.
The decision leaves just a single zone open for the hunt, with about 50 wolves left for hunters to claim out of an initial season limit of 251 animals. The remaining zone covers portions of Burnett, Washburn, Sawyer, Rusk, Price, and Taylor counties.
This year’s statewide wolf season has only been open for 23 days. Last year, the wolf season ran for about half of the more than four month period it was scheduled to be open. DNR officials are not sure why the harvest has moved so quickly this year, especially since more than twice as many wolves were available to hunters than a year ago.