The Permit Areas allow a more refined level of local deer management, specifically with respect to setting goals and managing the annual harvest.
Minnesota was divided into Deer Management Units and Permit Areas (subunits) following the closed season of 1971. Minnesota’s 1971 deer hunting season was closed, a practice which had been exercised intermittently by the state in the past. Deer populations across eastern North America similarly experienced dramatic decreases, irrespective of whether the deer were impacted by wolf predation or hunting (Voigt 1990).
#Minnesota template forest series#
A pronounced decline in deer numbers and the harvest in northern Minnesota occurred in response to a series of severe winters, over-harvests (either sex seasons), and overly mature habitat during the late 1960s and early 1970s (MNDNR 1974, 1990 Mech and Karns 1977). Since the 1950s, documented fluctuations in the state’s deer populations have been attributable to changes in winter severity, habitat, hunting, and predation primarily by wolves.
By 1920, deer had become fairly common in northern Minnesota, but they were nearly eliminated from the prairies due to farming and subsistence hunting (MNDNR 1990). Over the years, deer population trends have varied around the state. The methodology for estimating annual harvests and hunter success rate gradually improved, so that by 1956 a statistically valid sampling method was adopted (MNDNR 1974). Initial management attempts at estimating the annual deer harvest and written records date back to 1918. The first big game law affecting deer in Minnesota was established in 1858, although enforcement was likely difficult (MNDNR 1974). Two principal factors positively impacting the growth of the deer population have been (1) alterations of their habitat by timber harvesting, fire, and agriculture and (2) increasingly intense management directly by manipulation of the population’s sex and age composition (through hunting) and indirectly via habitat management programs. Prior to European settlement (before 1860), deer were most common in the hardwood forests of central and southeastern Minnesota and were relatively rare in the pine ( Pinus spp.) forests east and north of the Mississippi River (MNDNR 1990). White-tailed deer were not always so abundant. Recent estimates of the state’s pre-fawning (spring) population have exceeded 600,000 deer, with fall estimates reaching as high as 1 million deer (MNDNR 1990). White-tailed deer.–White-tailed deer range throughout Minnesota and are considered the state’s most valued big game animal. Herein, the objectives of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MNDNR) are to (1) provide a general historical perspective for gray wolves and white-tailed deer in Minnesota and (2) highlight research findings specifically concerning wolf-deer interactions and aspects of each species’ ecology pertinent to those interactions. Clearly, white-tailed deer and gray wolves have helped hone morphological and behavioral adaptations in each other for at least 1 million years of coevolution (Nelson and Mech 1981). Today in the Great Lakes region, and in Minnesota specifically, white-tailed deer are the primary prey of wolves, with moose ( Alces alces) typically being of secondary importance where they both exist (Stenlund 1955, Mech and Frenzel 1971, Van Ballenberghe et al. Because wolves have ranged over most of the Northern Hemisphere, a greater area than inhabited by any of their prey, primary species in the wolf’s diet, has and still, depends on geographic location (Mech 1970). Similarly, wolves have existed in their present form for 1-2 million years, but evolved from flesh-eating ancestors that occurred some 45-55 million year ago (Matthew 1930). However, artiodactyls (even-toed ungulates or hooved animals) from which they evolved have existed for at least 58 million years (Kulp 1961). Modern white-tailed deer have been evolving for about 1 million years (since the Pleistocene epoch). To best understand and appreciate the relationship of gray wolves ( Canis lupus) and white-tailed deer ( Odocoileus virginianus) in Minnesota today, information concerning their evolutionary backgrounds is helpful. © 1998 Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, State of Minnesota – 10 June 1998
DelGiudice, Ph.D., Forest Wildlife Populations Research Group, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, as an unpublished “white paper” prepared for the Minnesota Wolf Management Roundtable. The Ecological Relationship of Gray Wolves and White-tailed Deer in Minnesota