The wolf population has remained stable at that “other” park the last couple of years . . .
Yellowstone National Park officials say the park’s wolf population has stabilized at about 100 wolves over the last two years.
Officials tell the Billings Gazette that represents about a 60 percent reduction from 2007 wolf numbers as elk populations have also declined.
Who says politics is a lost art? The Wyoming legislature just passed a rather schizoid wolf management bill — wolves are nuisance predators, except where they aren’t . . .
The Wyoming Legislature has sent Gov. Matt Mead a bill to change the state’s wolf-management law — a critical step toward ratifying the agreement the governor reached with the federal government last year over how to end Endangered Species Act protections for the animals.
However, uncertainty remains over possible legal challenges to Wyoming’s wolf management plan. Many hunters and ranchers in the state worry that a large wolf population poses an unacceptable threat to other wildlife and livestock.
Under the bill now awaiting Mead’s signature, the state would allow trophy hunting for wolves in a flexible zone around Yellowstone National Park beginning this fall, while classifying wolves as predators that could be shot on sight in the rest of the state.
This week’s Hungry Horse News has a nice piece on the history of wolf recovery in Northwest Montana . . .
The revival of wolf populations in Northwest Montana likely had its genesis with a single pack just north of Glacier National Park.
A female wolf named Kishinena in British Columbia was caught and radio-collared in April 1979. She was the first radio-collared wolf in the Rocky Mountains as part of the Wolf Ecology Project headed up by Robert Ream, at the University of Montana.
While she spent most of her time in British Columbia roaming the North Fork drainage, Kishinena did wander into Glacier Park on occasion.
From today’s Missoulian . . .
Hunters across Montana had killed less than half the quota of wolves set by state biologists as of Sunday, the end of rifle season for deer and elk.
The state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks had recorded that hunters had shot 99 wolves by Sunday across 14 management units. The quota was reached in only one wolf district, the large unit that stretches from just east of Butte to the North Dakota state line.
Montana’s big game season will end as scheduled, but the wolf hunt will continue. So far, hunters have taken only 96 of the allowed 220 wolves.
Here’s the lead-in from an AP article discussing this . . .
Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials say Montana’s 2011 general big game hunting season will end Sunday evening, as planned, while wolf hunting will continue at least through the end of the year.
From the Daily Inter Lake . . .
Heading into the final week of the big game hunting season, the deer and elk harvest picked up but still lags behind last year’s numbers while the wolf harvest is approaching quotas for a few Northwest Montana hunting districts.
Northwest Montana has six wolf hunting districts with a combined hunting quota of 71 wolves.
For District 101 covering the area between Libby and Kalispell, hunters have taken down 15 wolves out of a quota of 19 for the district.
In District 130 covering the area east of Kalispell including the Swan Valley, nine wolves have been harvested; the quota is 12.
And in the North Fork’s District 110, one wolf has been harvested out of the quota of two.
George Ostrom of the Hungry Horse News just finished up a fascinating history of wolves in America. Recommended reading.
Here’s the lead-in for part 1 . . .
When wolves first made a comeback into Glacier National Park from a pack coming down from Canada, I did a lot of research on their past history in the U.S. Few people have much past knowledge on what has now become the “new” game animal, so let me share some surprising facts:
Before the white man came, there were wolves in every state of the union, and the first bounty on them was placed by the Plymouth Colony in 1630. Lewis and Clark’s journals of 1804 mentioned the “great numbers” of wolves, with especially large populations in what is now the Billings area.
And for part 2 . . .
The cattlemen weren’t sitting idly by waiting for the legislature. Many of them started or stepped up their own efforts of poisoning carcasses, hiring professionals and, of course, every cowboy on the range had orders to kill any coyote, wolf or bear on sight.
In 1895, a new $3 bounty law was passed, and the Miles City newspaper reported 3,300 wolves killed by April, but this was later proven slightly high. A total of 5,866 hides were turned in for bounty in 1896, but the wolves were getting smarter and doing such things as not returning to a kill, avoiding traps and taking off at the sight of men on horses.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks released end-of-month totals for hunting season so far. The Daily Inter Lake has the story, including the wolf numbers . . .
So far this hunting season, hunters have taken 44 wolves in Montana.
The overall statewide quota is 220 wolves spread across 16 hunting districts.
In Northwest Montana’s six districts, a total of 17 wolves have been harvested; the quota of allowable wolf kills is 71.
Not unexpectedly, the request by a number of environmental groups for an emergency injunction against this year’s wolf hunt was denied . . .
A federal appeals court has turned down an emergency request by wildlife advocates seeking to stop gray wolf hunts underway in the Northern Rockies.
In a ruling Tuesday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the emergency injunction sought by three advocacy group but said it would consider the request during oral arguments scheduled for next month.
From today’s Missoulian . . .
A group of wolf advocates have requested an emergency halt to wolf hunting in the Rocky Mountains, one week before the general rifle season begins in Montana.
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Clearwater and WildEarth Guardians want to return the gray wolf to federal Endangered Species Act protection.