“It’s a real opportunity to harvest a nice prize,” said Livermore, 45, of Naubinway. The $100 resident license fee puts a “premium on the species” that “makes sure that individuals value that wildlife,” he said.

The state Department of Natural Resources wants hunters to cull 43 of an estimated 658 wolves in three areas of the Upper Peninsula. License sales will be limited to 1,200 and will cost nonresidents $500. The licenses could go quickly; no one knows what to expect.

A clerk at the Gander Mountain outlet in Marquette, the U.P.’s biggest city, said there hasn’t been much talk about the licenses. In Big Bay, Cram’s General Store clerk Shawn Chaperon said a few people have inquired about wolf hunting licenses.

“There are probably going to be 10 or 15 people show up” today to buy them, Chaperon predicted.

The season is Nov. 15 to Dec. 31, but will end whenever 43 wolves have been bagged. Successful hunters are required to report to area DNR stations within 72 hours.

Rules prohibit some techniques used for deer and bear, such as baiting, and wolves are tougher to hunt, said Department of Natural Resources spokesman Ed Golder.

“The experience from other states has shown that a lot of … effort goes into hunting wolves,” Golder said.

The hunt aims to modestly reduce growing wolf populations in three areas — or management units — where they’ve been preying on domestic animals.

“It’s structured around areas of wolf-related conflict where the problem is not addressed by other means,” Golder said.

At his U.P. farm in Greenland, Duane Kolpack said he has shot eight wolves, lost as many as 70 animals to them and favors the state’s upcoming wolf hunt.

Kolpack and his wife, Julie, are in Wolf Management Unit B, where the DNR wants hunters to take 19 wolves. The plan is to eliminate 16 in Unit A, the far western U.P., and eight in Unit C surrounding Engadine and Gould City in the southeastern U.P.

Yoopers who support the hunt are skeptical of the quotas. “I think (killing) 43 is kind of a joke,” Kolpack said. “I think there are 2,000-plus wolves in the U.P., and every pack is going to grow by five or six a year.”

Caught in middle

The Kolpacks and their four children are in the middle of the conflict. About three years ago, wolves began attacking the easier targets among their 700 cattle, sheep, goats and hogs.

“My wife chased one out of the barn,” Kolpack said. “It took a goat, and she chased it about half a mile down the road, but it never let go of the goat.”

Officially, the family has reported losing 50 animals to wolf predation. Duane Kolpack said he believes the real number is closer to 70; he’s not sure how many calves were dragged off into the woods.

While wolves were listed as endangered, the DNR supplied the Kolpacks with firecracker shells and mules to keep them at bay. After wolves were taken off the endangered list two years ago, Duane was free to use firearms to defend his herds.

The wolves have since become more cautious. But he said he recently was awakened at 3 a.m. when wolves went after his calves — and he chased them away by speeding across a dark field in his pickup.

Kolpack said he doesn’t think he’s made a big dent in the pack or packs living nearby.

Just west of Baraga, Bill Delene, his wife and two young daughters see wolves almost daily.

“My neighbor called just this Monday and said: Watch your kids, two big wolves just crossed your driveway,” he said. “The only concern I have personally is for my kids; I tell them, ‘If you see a wolf, run in the house.’ ”

Delene, a shift supervisor at the Baraga state prison, has captured thousands of wolf photos on cameras he places along trails. He also has accidently snared them in his coyote traps — as many as five in one day.

“Wolves have been increasing because our social, caring capacity has allowed it,” Delene said. “They’ve got to be wisely managed because if they’re not, at some point people are going to say enough is enough and take care of it themselves.”

Hunt sparks opposition

Jill Fritz, the Lansing-based state director of the Humane Society of the United States, called the hunt “unnecessary” and said existing measures — letting folks like Kolpack defend their animals against wolf attacks — are working fine.

A Humane Society-backed group, Keep Michigan Wolves Protected, is circulating petitions to outlaw wolf hunting. If successful, two proposals voiding state laws will be on the November 2014 ballot. The latest petition effort is being received with enthusiasm, Fritz said.

“While they’re signing, they’re sharing with us important aspects of the campaign … (including) how the Legislature did an end-around of the first petition,” she said.

Keep Wolves Protected says most wolf attacks on livestock forming the DNR’s justification for the hunt came from one farm near Matchwood.

That farm owner, John Koski, failed to follow through on DNR-recommended measures to protect his livestock and left animal carcasses in his fields — a natural draw for more wolves, the organization claims.

State Sen. Tom Casperson, the Escanaba Republican who spearheaded the legislative effort to legalize wolf hunting, described in a Senate speech the Kolpack family’s problems to blunt opponents’ criticism. He also mentioned an August incident when wolves killed nine beagles that an Ohio man and some friends were training in woods outside Rudyard.

Casperson said people living downstate, especially wolf hunt opponents, don’t sufficiently understand the challenges U.P. residents face.

“Those pushing hard that we shouldn’t have the hunt, I tell them: ‘How about I bring some down to you?’ ” Casperson said. “They say, ‘sure’ — but it doesn’t sound like they’re really sure about that.”