Kyra Briggs began deer hunting after she took her firearms safety class when she was 12 years old.
Before actually being able to hold a gun, the youngster would sit in a deer stand with her grandfather, so she considers herself an experienced deer hunter.
But after this season’s firearms deer hunting season, she’ll take on a new hunting challenge with state’s first wolf hunting season.
“They are a fairly smart animal, and it’s difficult just being able to see one,” she said. “From what I know, this will take a very different technique.”
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources will issue 6,000 licenses, and the first season will start with the beginning of firearms deer hunting on Nov. 3.
Briggs will hunt the late season, which begins on Nov. 24, so it doesn’t conflict with her deer hunting season.
In the meantime, she said she’s been talking to other hunters and hearing helpful hints. And she’s looked online for ideas about wolf hunting. She said her dad, Brian, and brother, Shaver, will help her prepare for the wolf hunt.
Briggs explained she’ll start planning for the wolf hunt by looking for signs of wolves around the trails by her family’s hunting shack near Birchdale.
“We have trail cameras around our stands and we’re seeing lots of wolves and tracks,” she said.
Briggs said she plans to use a deer stand to hunt for a wolf, and she said state law allows for baiting. “So that will be a lot different than deer hunting,” she added.
“I look forward to hunting something different and trying different techniques,” she said. “I only deer and bird hunt and this is something completely different with having to bait them and I’ll be having friends leave their deer carcass to use as bait.”
The Briggs family is very hunting oriented, she said, so this fits in well. Her daughters, Kya, 10, and Pahtynn, 4, will sit in the deer stand with their mother for the first weekend of deer hunting, like they have since they were each 1-1/2 years old.
“It’s very important to me to continue that hunting tradition,” she said.
And during the wolf season, Shaver will be at the shack for the muzzleloader deer hunting season. His presence there may come in handy, she said. He would be there to help, if needed. And, she joked, “I don’t gut the deer I shoot so he and my dad will have to gut the wolf for me if I shoot one.”
If successful, Briggs said she plans to have a wolf mounted and said she’ll sacrifice the place her tread mill now sits in her living room for the mount. “I think that would be pretty neat,” she said of displaying a wolf mount in her home.
Briggs said she’s aware that the state’s first wolf hunting and trapping seasons have caused some controversy.
The Minnesota Court of Appeals recently rejected a request for a preliminary injunction that would have stopped the state’s inaugural wolf hunting and trapping season. The Court of Appeals ruled that the petitioners, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Howling for Wolves, did not meet their burden of proving irreparable harm for an injunction to be issued.
The petitioner’s lawsuit to challenge the way the season was established is still before the Court of Appeals and will proceed on its merits. A decision is not expected until next year, but the court ruled this year’s hunt could proceed.
The DNR says it has taken a conservative approach to the state’s first wolf season by establishing a total target harvest of 400 wolves and a mechanism to close seasons when target harvests are reached. Minnesota has an estimated population of about 3,000 wolves, and the season will not have any significant impact on the population, according to the agency.
Consistent with the state’s wolf plan, the DNR says it is committed to the long-term survival of wolves in the state and resolving conflicts between humans and wolves.
Briggs said she feels the hunt is needed because of the number of wolves and a decrease in fear of humans.
“My feeling is they’ve become so overpopulated and are less timid,” she said. “You’re hearing more frequent cases of them coming out with people around; before you never heard about that.”
Briggs called the lack of fear of humans “a little scary” when kids and dogs are at the hunting shack. “I know you take a risk with any type of wild animal at a hunting shack in the woods, but this is a little scarier knowing that they’re not afraid of anything any more,” she said.
The hunting and trapping season, she said, should reduce the population and restore a healthy fear of humans in wolves.
Briggs said she’s not sure if she would reapply for a wolf permit next year, whether she shoots one or not this year.
“Once might be plenty and then it would give somebody else a chance to do it,” she said, adding that she feels fortunate to get a permit, especially when she was the only one in her shack group to be awarded one.
Some unlucky permit applicants are excited for her, she said. “But I think they’re a little upset at same time that they didn’t get one,” she said laughing. “Jealous maybe.”
That attitude, she said, puts a little pressure on her to be successful.
