Wisconsin had an estimated 1,162 gray wolves in 321 packs in late winter 2026, according to the Department of Natural Resources.
The 2026 population estimate represents a 5% year-over-year decline and is 3% below the 5-year average, a slight fluctuation around a mean that suggest the state’s wolf population has reached its biological carrying capacity, said Lydia Margenau, DNR wildlife research scientist.
The DNR released the information June 25 during a virtual meeting of its Wolf Advisory Committee. Randy Johnson, DNR large carnivore specialist, led the meeting. The full 2026 wolf monitoring report is expected to be posted to the DNR’s website in the coming days, Johnson said.
The statistical confidence levels in the 2026 wolf estimate include a population range from 1,026 to 1,307 and a range in packs from 287 to 359.
The estimate does not include wolves not associated with packs or those that have disbursed out of the state’s core wolf range.
Specific to the five Wisconsin wolf management units, Zone 1 in the far north and northwest had 511 wolves, Zone 2 in the northeast had 273, Zone 3 in the northwest had 126, Zone 4 in the northcentral and northeast had 54 and Zone 5 in the central forest zone had 191. Seven other wolves were not attributed to a zone.
The average pack sizes ranged from a low of 2.54 wolves in Zone 4 to a high of 4.34 in Zone 1.
Pack territories were an average of 54 square miles in Zones 1 through 4 but, similar to past years, 32 square miles in Zone 5, likely due to higher prey density in the central forest area, Margenau said.
The DNR produces an annual report on wolves in the state, partly as a requirement to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The gray wolf in Wisconsin and most other states has been protected under the federal Endangered Species Act since February 2022.
Since 2020 the DNR has used an occupancy model in its work to produce a wolf population estimate. The model uses inputs from wolf tracking surveys conducted by agency staff, volunteers and others as well as data obtained from GPS-collared wolves.
The GPS collar data helps the scientists determine wolf territory sizes and movements. The DNR obtains location information from the collared animals via satellite.
As of June 2026 there were 45 active GPS collars on wolves in Wisconsin, according to DNR research scientist Danielle Deming, including 15 deployed this year.
For the winter 2025-26 wolf monitoring period, 503 carnivore tracking surveys were conducted across 17,771 miles of roads, according to the DNR. Ninety-seven percent of the blocks received at least three surveys, the minimum recommended.
The work is done in winter when the wolf population is near or at its annual low and when the animals are easiest to track.
Wolf populations typically double after pups are born in spring then drop over the rest of the year due to various sources of mortality, according to wolf researchers.
The gray wolf was native to Wisconsin but after decades of persecution, including poisoning and bounties, the species was considered extirpated from the state by 1960.
Increased protections, including the 1973 Endangered Species Act, helped the carnivore expand from a residual population in northern Minnesota and recolonize Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
The Badger State’s wolf population was estimated at 25 in 1980, 34 in 1990, 248 in 2000, 704 in 2010 and 1,034 in 2020, according to DNR reports.
As seen in the recent data, the wolf population has leveled off over the last decade or so as the animals have filled the most suitable habitat in the state, according to biologists.
The slight declines in recent years could be due to mild winter conditions which favor white-tailed deer but are tougher on wolves, Margenau said.
Researchers with the Voyageurs Wolf Project also documented a recent decline in the wolf population it studies in northern Minnesota in its most recent report.
Wisconsin has held four wolf hunting and trapping seasons in the modern era, in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2021.
But no wolf hunting or trapping has occurred since February 2021 due to a successful in-state lawsuit by wolf advocates in October 2021 and a federal district judge’s decision in February 2022 that returned the wolf in Wisconsin and many other states to protections of the federal Endangered Species Act.
Several attempts are being made to delist the wolf. They include: an appeal of the decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; the Pet and Livestock Protection Act, legislation that has passed the U.S. House of Representatives and is in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works; and a rider attached to the fiscal year 2027 Department of Interior appropriations bill.
Confirmed or probable gray wolf depredations on livestock and other domestic animals in Wisconsin decreased in 2025, as did the amount of compensation paid, but were close to 5-year averages, according to DNR reports.
The compensation dropped from $322,970 in 2024 to $200,864 in 2025.
So far in 2026 in Wisconsin there have been 19 verified wolf conflicts and 15 verified wolf depredations on livestock, down from 32 and 22, respectively, in 2025, Johnson said.
There has never been a wolf attack on a human in modern Wisconsin history, according to the DNR.
For more information, visit the DNR’s Wolves in Wisconsin page at dnr.wi.gov.
