I believe MI is just being realistic and giving credit to the majority of it's deer hunters as being intelligent and law abiding. At one time when wolves were rare or non-existent, the chance of encountering one in the wild while hunting was also rare. Folks seeing a canine predator just automatically assumed it was a coyote and shot it. Nowadays wolves are common and encounters are also common. Since the differences between wolves and coyotes are obvious to any intelligent hunter, shooting one by "mistake" really shouldn't happen, any more than "mistakenly" shooting a doe for a buck does. Shooting a wolf illegally is still a federal offense and can lead to severe consequences. I doubt that the feds will ease up on wolf shooters at this point in time, just becasue of a change in a MI coyote law. Wolves are also becoming so common below the old "wolf lines" in most northern states, that shutting down part of the state and not the whole state makes little sense. Besides...... the old farts that felt the need to shoot every thing that moved are dying off or becoming so blind they couldn't see a wolf much less shoot it anyway. Younger hunters have all been educated how to identify wolves and generally are better at following game laws than those same old codgers that do things cause that's what grandpa did. Plus, the dirtball violators that get a rush outta illegally gut shooting wolves did it when the coyote ban was on anyway. Why punish law abiding hunters and take away opportunities because of the actions of a few dirtballs. While I assume MI is like WI and most other states with wolf populations and would like to establish a legal hunting season to control wolf populations, I doubt very much if they are trying to temp ethical hunters to break federal law.
