Karen Wils photo Two coyotes play tag in front of a trail camera in Delta County.

ESCANABA — It’s December, a time for the big dogs to dance.

Thousands of Yoopers have just spent two weeks in the woods watching and waiting for that elusive buck. Trail cameras have been aimed down countless trails (thank you Mr. Shiras) recording all that moves. Tracks and sounds have been monitored in all the wild areas for over sixteen days.

Many U.P. hunters bagged nice bucks. But perhaps not as many as a few years back. Many hunters saw does and fawns in the fields and back forties. But maybe a lot fewer than ten years ago.

Since I was a teen, we kept a tally sheet on our fridge listing all of the successful hunters in our circle of family and friends. We penned down the hunter’s name, day and time of the kill and area in which the hunter hunted.

In the snowy 1970s, few deer are recorded, but in the 1980s and 1990s a dozen or more nice sized deer were listed. This year I have three bucks on my tally.

The whitetail deer have been a part of the U.P. scene since the virgin timber was cleared. The wolves have been a native species even longer than that. The timber wolf was nearly wiped out over the decades by pioneer peoples and the deer thrived on the forest regrowth.

Today the wolves have made a remarkable comeback.

In my high school senior yearbook under “ambitions” one of the things I wrote was that “I wished to hear the sound of a wild wolf in the U.P.”

Well, I have many times over.

The first time I saw one right here in Delta County, I told my husband to “watch out for that deer.” Then it turned its head and looked at us.

It was the most incredibly beautiful and incredibly big canine that I had ever seen.

That was about 15 years ago, and because I am often in the woods, I have seen several. They are the apex predator of the Northwoods and they have sure changed a lot of things about the woodlands. Not only has the wolf numbers increased by leaps and bounds over the years, but the coyote population too has swelled.

Some of the things I have noticed differently about the deer herd near camp is they move mainly at night, rarely cross the wide river, and fawn survival rate is way down.

Small game animals and beaver numbers are down in my observations.

People do not hunt with beagles and large hounds like they used to. Wolves see dogs not as “food” but as a competitor in their hunting grounds. And the wolves eliminate them. Bird dog hunters keep close tabs on their dogs.

I do not hate wolves. On the contrary. I love wolves; because of them we have the domestic dog (check out their DNA). Wolves are needed in our ecosystem.

But, there has be to be a balance of nature out there. The predator and prey relationship is a pretty amazing thing. It’s not always pretty, but it is a fair cycle of life.

I remember my Dad telling the importance of a good balance of nature after a snake had just eaten a sandpiper egg. Dad was right, there needs to be a niche and the right numbers of every living thing.

Today our trail cameras are showing us more predators than deer and other prey.

Tomorrow I will strap on my camera and head for the woods and I will pray for a healthy, more natural balance of nature.

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Karen (Rose) Wils is a lifelong north Escanaba resident. Her folksy columns appear weekly in Lifestyles.