State Scales Back Wolf Harvest
After a half-decade push to reduce Montana’s wolf population through increasingly permissive hunting and trapping rules, the Treasure State is reversing course. O ials 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 Wednesday 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 o ials previously thought.
“[The new regulations] prevent a runaway harvest year while also not putting an additional layer of handcu _s 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 Commissioner 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 in Region 4. The rest of the state has far fewer, if any, resident wolves. Two small “wolf management units” just outside Yel-
