For the second year in a row, Wisconsin’s wolf hunting season is ending early. The state Department of Natural Resources says the remaining zone open, Zone 3, will close to hunters at 5 p.m. on Monday.
Zone 3 covers a stretch of northwest Wisconsin, including portions of Burnett, Rusk, Talyor, Washburn, Sawyer, and Price counties. The harvest limit for the area was set at 71 animals and the DNR says it started the process to close the zone when 64 wolves had been taken as of December 21.
DNR Land Division Administrator Kurt Thiede says a decision was made to close the zone before the quota was hit because of increased hunting activity in the area, with 12 wolves harvested in the last two days. Thiede says “we are closing the wolf season now to reduce the risk of exceeding our quota.”
This is Wisconsin’s second wolf hunting season since the animal was taken off the federal endangered species list. The season was set to run from October through February, or until a harvest quota of 251 animals was hit. The other five zones established by the DNR closed much earlier in the season.