Montana hunters, trappers take 230 wolves during 2013-14 season

Mar. 17, 2014   |  

This undated image provided by Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks shows a wolf in Montana. Hunters and trappers harvested 230 wolves in Montana during the 2013-14 season, which came to a close Saturday. / AP Photo/Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks, File

Written by Erin Madison

Tribune Staff Writer

Past wolf hunts in Montana

• 2013-14 — 144 wolves taken by hunters, 86 taken by trappers, 230 total
• 2012-13 — 128 wolves taken by hunters, 97 by trappers, 225 total
• 2011-12 — 166 wolves taken by hunters, no trapping

• 2010 — Montana’s 2010 hunting season was blocked by a federal court ruling that returned wolves to the federal endangered species list. In April 2011, the U.S. Congress enacted a new federal law delisting wolves in Montana and Idaho, and in portions of Washington, Oregon and Utah.

• 2009 — 72 wolves taken by hunters, no trapping. As hunters approached the overall harvest quota of 75 wolves, FWP closed the hunt about two weeks before the season was scheduled to end.

Montana’s wolf hunting season came to a close Saturday, with hunters and trappers taking 230 wolves.

That’s only five more wolves than the prior year’s wolf harvest despite extending the rifle season by a month and a half, lifting the quotas on the animals across most of the state and implementing a higher bag limit for individual hunters.

Hunters took 144 wolves during a season that started in September, and trappers took 86 wolves between Dec. 15 and Feb. 28. The harvest totals from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks do not include 70 wolves taken by federal wildlife agents and private landowners in response to attacks on domestic livestock.

The minimum wolf count in Montana for 2012 was 625 wolves, according to FWP. The minimum wolf count is the number of wolves actually verified by FWP wolf specialists. The minimum wolf count for 2013, which will take into account the recent hunt, will likely be around that same level, said Ty Smucker, wolf management specialist with FWP in Great Falls. FWP is working to compile those numbers. “The number of wolves in the state seems to have leveled off,” he said. Of the wolves taken during the 2013-14 season, 12 were taken along the Rocky Mountain Front. Seven of those were harvested by rifle and five by trapping.

All the wolves taken in FWP Region 4, which covers central and northcentral Montana, were taken along the Front, Smucker said. While a small population of wolves live in the Little Belt and Big Belt mountains, no wolves have been harvested there.

Nineteen wolves were taken from Region 4 in the 2012-13 season, he said. The drop in wolf harvest in the region is likely due to FWP biologists removing wolves from the Front due to livestock depredation.

During summer 2012, FWP removed a wolf pack from the Bean Lake area near Augusta that had been eating calves. In January 2013, FWP removed another pack from the Haystack Butte area near Augusta for the same reason.

Smucker believes the removal of those two packs led to a smaller wolf harvest along the front this season. “In Region 4, things were pretty slow,” he said. Trappers took five wolves in Region 4, compared to 14 during the 2012-13 season. Trappers were out this season, but “there was hardly any wolf activity,” Smucker said.

Region 1, which covers northwest Montana, saw the largest wolf harvest, with 101 wolves taken in the region this season. Seventy wolves were taken in Region 2, which includes Missoula and westcentral Montana.

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