Wolves, deer, and deer hunting in northeastern Minnesota: the data

There is much debate regarding the role wolves have on deer populations and deer hunting in particular. Many have stated that wolves are “decimating” the deer population in Minnesota and that we need to kill wolves to resolve this issue. We examined publicly-available information collected by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources from 2012 to 2022 regarding deer hunting (number of deer hunters, deer harvested, etc.) in northeastern Minnesota, including the area we study wolves, the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem.

We compared deer hunter success with 1) data from Minnesota’s 3 most recent wolf hunting/trapping seasons (2012-2014) to see whether killing wolves had any noticeable impact on deer hunter success, and 2) data on wolf and deer populations based on data we have collected in the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem since 2015 to assess whether deer hunter success was lower when there were more wolves.