Written by MICHAEL BABCOCK
Montana’s wolf hunting season ended Wednesday, with hunters having killed 166 wolves out of a target quota of 220.
There is the possibility of an extended wolf hunting season in southwestern Montana’s Bitterroot Valley, which will be considered by Fish, Wildlife & Parks commissioners when they meet today in Helena.
In Wolf Management Unit 250 — the upper Bitterroot Valley — hunters killed only six wolves of a target quota of 18 during the 2011-12 season, which began in September.
“That is a place where we have seen a real significant decrease in elk populations,” said Ron Aasheim, head of communications and education for FWP. “Some of that is attributable to wolf depredation, and some attributed to other large carnivores.
“We didn’t get close to the quota, and we specifically wanted to address wolf numbers,” he said.
FWP is a year into an ongoing study of why elk numbers are falling in the upper Bitterroot. Earlier this year, agency biologists collared 66 elk calves; they plan to collar more this spring.
Aasheim said researchers suspect mountain lions killed a significant number of elk calves in the area, but it will take more research to confirm that.
He also said agency staffers are just beginning to assess the wolf hunting season.
“We are taking a look at what we learned, and places we either met or got close to the quota, and places where we didn’t and asking ‘why,'” Aasheim said. “Are there adjustments we need to make internally?”
He said FWP has received all kinds of suggestions about the wolf hunt, such as whether or not electronic calls — which are not currently legal — should be allowed, and whether there is a need to address licensing.
“Are the fees reasonable? Are we discouraging people from hunting? Should there be an opportunity to take more than one wolf by an individual, and do you need more than one license to do that,” Aasheim said.
“We are trying to figure out the best ways to utilize the hunting public to manage wolves,” he said. “Are there barriers to their success, or are there opportunities that we need to take a look at?”
Wolves were introduced to Yellowstone National Park in 1995, although they already had begun to migrate down to Montana from Canada through the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, and they soon spread throughout Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.
They eventually were removed from the endangered species list and, in 2009, a hunting season was adopted as a management tool.
People opposed to wolf hunting successfully sued to block the hunts, but in 2011 congressional action removed the wolves from the Endangered Species Act protection. Montana resumed wolf hunting last year, with the season opening in September.
The state is divided into 14 wolf management units, or WMUs. Hunters killed the quota of wolves in four of them. The WMUs where wolf quotas were met are in northwestern and southwestern Montana near Gardiner, just north of Yellowstone National Park.
Data from the wolf season remains raw, but among the spreadsheets kept by the state are the weights of the wolves taken.
“You hear all the stories and see pictures on the Internet, but the biggest wolf taken weighed 120 pounds,” Aasheim said.
The weights of wolves killed ranged between 70 and 110 pounds, with most of them weighing less than 100 pounds.
The majority of the harvested wolves were gray in color. White wolves were the rarest. Black wolves also were taken.