After a half-decade push to reduce Montana’s wolf population through increasingly permissive hunting and trapping rules, the Treasure State is reversing course. Officials are reducing the number of wolves hunters and trappers can kill this season.
The new measures were enacted during a contentious annual Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting Aug. 19 that set regulations for the upcoming wolf season. They come on the heels of a new population estimate that shows a decreasing population in Montana as a whole—and nearly 370 fewer wolves in the state than officials previously thought.
“[The new regulations] prevent a runaway harvest year while also not putting an additional layer of handcuffs on us,” Commissioner Ian Wargo of Kalispell said at the meeting.
Wolves in Montana were removed from the endangered species list in 2011. Ever since, Montana has managed them through hunting. A decade later, a state legislative mandate ordered Montana to decrease its wolf population without a clear target of how far to diminish numbers. In the years that followed, the state repeatedly expanded hunting and trapping opportunities even as the number of animals killed remained relatively steady.
Now, with a new estimate indicating a smaller and decreasing wolf population than previously thought, state biologists recommended allowing hunters and trappers to harvest 250 wolves this season—down from 458 last year. The commission ultimately approved a higher limit of 300, a number that could “thread the needle” between meeting the state’s requirement to lower the population and reducing wolf numbers to the point where the federal government might relist the species, according to Wargo.
Wolf advocates contended that number puts too much of a dent in the population, currently estimated at 725 animals.
“The motive remains to kill as many wolves as possible,” KC York of the nonprofit Trap Free Montana said during public comment.
Regional subquotas mean the bulk of this season’s harvest will be focused in regions 1 and 2 in Northwest Montana, with quotas of 131 and 92 wolves respectively. Thirty-three wolves can be harvested in Region 3 and 28 wolves in Region 4. The rest of the state has far fewer, if any, resident wolves.
Two small “wolf management units” just outside Yellowstone National Park also perennially generate strong emotions over the hunt. This season, only one can be taken in each unit. The commission also reduced the overall bag limit for wolves from 15 to 10 statewide for individual hunters and trappers. In Region 3, they reduced it further: an individual hunter or trapper can take only five wolves.
In public comment, both sides of the wolf debate voiced distrust over the current population estimate, though for different reasons.
General wolf-hunting season this year begins Sept. 15. — Nick Mott, Mountain Journal
Republished from Mountain Journal.
