50 wolves killed in state's first managed hunt
Minnesota's first – and highly controversial – wolf hunting season began Saturday morning, and already 50 wolves have been killed as of Sunday night, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.
For the 16-day early wolf season, 3,600 licenses were issued, the Star Tribune notes. There is a 400-wolf quota, which includes 200 in the early season that runs concurrently with the firearms deer season, and 200 in a second hunting-trapping season that opens Nov. 24, the newspaper reports.
Protesters have decried the wolf hunt. Activists have failed in several attempts to stop the hunt through legal action. “We just brought them back from an endangered species, just to kill them?” one activist said to the Duluth News Tribune.
There was one fatality on opening day of hunting season, Don Bixby, 64, of Bemidji. He was shot by accident by another hunter about nine miles northeast of Bemidji.
His daughter tells the Bemidji Pioneer on Sunday that he was extremely cautious.