Shooting of collared wolves may bring new restrictions

Montana weighs rules to protect the predators near Yellowstone.
Posted: 12/10/2012

By Matthew Brown The Associate Press 
Billings, Montana--

The shooting of collared gray wolves from Yellowstone National Park is prompting Montana wildlife commissioners to consider new restrictions against killing the predators in areas near the park.

Wolf trapping in Montana kicks off Saturday. It's the state's first such trapping season since the animals lost their federal protections last year after almost four decades on the endangered-species list.

But hunting already is underway for the predators in Montana and neighboring Idaho and Wyoming, and at least seven of Yellowstone's roughly 88 wolves have been shot in recent weeks while traveling outside the park.

That includes five wolves fitted with tracking collars for scientific research, said Dan Stahler, a biologist with the park's wolf program. The most recent to be shot, the collared alpha female from the well-known Lamar Canyon pack, was killed last week in Wyoming.

Also shot in recent weeks were four collared wolves originally from the park but later living outside it. Three more shot in the vicinity of the park had unknown origins, park officials said.

Montana wildlife Commissioner Shane Colton said closing some areas to trapping or setting strict quotas will be on the table during a Monday commission meeting.

"We don't want to close any area off if we don't have to. But if we keep losing collared wolves ... management becomes difficult," Colton said. 

Wildlife-advocacy groups are pressing state officials to impose a protective buffer zone around the park to protect a species that serves as a major draw for Yellowstone's 3 million visitors annually. 

Hunting and trapping are prohibited inside park boundaries, but wolves range freely across that line.
Marc Cooke with the group Wolves of the Rockies alleged hunters were targeting collared animals, either for bragging rights or out of spite for wolf restoration in the northern Rockies. Shooting a collared wolf is not illegal if it's done within state regulations.

"The proportion of collared wolves is too high to believe this is not being done deliberately," Cooke said. "It's wrong, and the world needs to know this."

Radio collars on wolves are used to track the animals' movement, often for research. They also are used outside the park to track down and kill the predators after livestock attacks.

Monday's meeting in Montana was set up months ago to give commissioners a chance to review the wolf harvest to date heading into a trapping season scheduled to run through Feb. 28. The intent was to see whether too many were being killed or whether the killing was overly concentrated in a particular area, said Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim.

He said agency officials would make no recommendation on quotas or closures. Montana has low harvest limits for wolves in some areas near Yellowstone and Glacier national parks. Those don't include all the areas where collared wolves have been shot. 

Hunters have shot at least 87 wolves across Montana this fall. At least 120 have been killed by hunters and trappers in Idaho, and 58 have been shot in Wyoming.

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