Written by Erin Madison
Tribune staff writer
About a month ago, Josh Fields went bow hunting for elk in the Polebridge area outside Glacier National Park. “I was cow calling in one of my elk areas and nothing was going on,” said Fields, who played for the Great Falls Voyagers in 2007 and now works as a police officer in Whitefish.
So Fields, who usually carries decoys with him, decided to set up a few coyote decoys and started yipping.
“It wasn’t within 10 minutes that a wolf comes running in at full bore,” Fields said.
The wolf set his sights on Fields and was running straight at him. Fields let his first arrow fly, and the wolf snatched it out of the air and broke the arrow in two. Fields fired again, this time hitting the wolf, a gray 4-and-a-half-year-old male weighing 83 pounds.
“I stopped him at 15 yards,” Fields said.
Fields’ wolf, shot on Sept. 5, was one of seven killed by hunters so far this year. Wolf archery season opened Sept. 1, and some backcountry areas opened Sept. 15, but wolf season kicks off in earnest on Monday when the general rifle season opens.
An expanded wolf season
This year’s wolf hunting season has expanded compared to last year, with no statewide wolf quota and with Montana’s first wolf trapping season.
Trapping runs from Dec. 15 to Feb. 28.
Unlike last year, there is no statewide harvest quota for wolves, although two wolf management areas near Glacier National Park and Yellowstone National Park do have quotas.
All harvested wolves are still required to be reported to FWP within 24 hours.
“In the past, people have had to watch the quota,” said Ty Smucker, wolf management specialist with FWP in Great Falls. “They really don’t have to worry about that as much this year.”
Last year’s wolf season was extended by a month and a half. The season was set to close Dec. 31, but the quota of 220 wolves was a little more than halfway filled. The season ended with 166 wolves harvested, or about 75 percent of the quota.
“We still have quotas in those two units adjacent to the parks,” said George Pauley, of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks wildlife bureau. “It’s just pretty obvious we don’t need quotas as a safeguard.”
FWP will monitor the wolf hunt daily and retains the right to close the wolf season at anytime, he said.
Montana’s first wolf trapping season
The FWP commission voted to add trapping this year as another tool to manage the state’s wolf population.
“We are clearly aiming to reduce the wolf population in Montana,” said Ken McDonald, FWP’s wildlife bureau chief in Helena.
The minimum Montana wolf population estimates at the end of 2011 were 653 wolves, in 130 verified packs, and 39 breeding pairs. The minimum wolf count is the number of wolves actually counted by FWP wolf specialists, and likely is 10 to 30 percent fewer than the actual wolf population.
“Last year we hoped to reach a minimum population of about 425 after the hunting season, but after more than five months of hunting the population still grew from the previous year,” McDonald said. “This year we sought, and the commission approved, additional management tools to help reach a social balance that better reflects biological realities and public tolerance and values.”
So far this year, hunters have purchased 8,877 resident wolf licenses and 96 nonresident wolf licenses, according to FWP.
A challenging hunt
Hunting wolves is not easy.
“It’s pretty tough to get them,” Fields said. “They’re just smart.”
Fields never expected to get a wolf with a bow.
“I had a hard enough time hunting them with a rifle,” he said.
Hunters can shoot only one wolf this season, whether with a bow or rifle, so Fields won’t be able to hunt the animal during rifle season. Trappers can take three wolves, which means Fields could trap two more wolves this season. He plans to try.
Trappers are required to attend a six-hour certification class, taught by FWP staff and experienced wolf trappers.
“I’m signed up for the trapping class,” said Fields, who has never tried trapping before. “I’m going to go and learn.”
The classes are free and open to those 11 and over. Prospective trappers must preregister for the class, and many classes already have filled up. FWP announced last week that it scheduled additional certification classes that will accommodate up to 420 more trappers.
More than 2,000 people already have been certified or registered for the classes, Pauley said.
Trapping classes aim to instill ethics
The classes cover what is and isn’t legal in trapping, go over the gear needed, give tips on how to avoid trapping nontarget animals, demonstrate how to kill a wolf once it’s trapped and show how to care for the animal and get it out of the field.
“Basically we really pound in the ethics side of things,” Smucker said.
Those who have been trapping in Montana for a long time are concerned about a whole bunch of inexperienced trappers this year, he said. The Montana Trappers Association took the lead on saying Montana must require a trapping class, and association members are helping to teach that class.
“They’re trying to instill very, very strong ethics in people,” Smucker said.
The traps are buried with a lure, such as the scent of another wolf, behind it. Wolves are curious animals, so when they go to investigate the lure, they’ll walk over the trap, which will catch their leg.
Trappers are required to kill the animal right away. If people post photos of themselves with live trapped animals online they likely will be fined.
If hunters trap other animals, they’re required to call FWP. Smucker suspects that mountain lions will end up in some wolf traps. Wardens and biologists will be prepared to go out and collar and release those animals.
Ben Neal, of Choteau, has hunted unsuccessfully in both of Montana’s wolf seasons and plans to try trapping this year.
“It lengthens my hunting season out,” Neal said.
Neal suspects that the first month or so of trapping season will be the best time to catch wolves. After that the animals likely will wise up to the traps.
“They’re really smart,” Neal said. “They’re really hard to hunt.”
Wolves in the region
In northcentral Montana, wolves are primarily found along the Rocky Mountain Front, Smucker said.
There also have been scattered reports of wolves around Holter Lake and in the Little and Big Belt Mountains, but none that is confirmed.
“There are at least 50 wolves along the Front,” Smucker said.
FWP hasn’t defined the ideal number of wolves on the Front, he said.
Wolf numbers are much stronger in western Montana, which is where elk and deer numbers are also really taking a hit.
“We do notice as packs get larger they do have a greater probability of getting into conflicts with livestock,” Smucker said. “In my mind, it’d be nice to reduce the size of the average pack.”
Some packs are as small as two adults and a couple pups, while others might include 20 wolves.
Last year, nine wolves were taken by hunters in wolf management area 400, which includes the Rocky Mountain Front, the Hi-Line and northeastern Montana.
Smucker expects to see more wolves taken in the area this year because of trapping.
“It’ll be interesting to see how effective folks are in this region,” he said.
A lot of wolves in the region winter on private land. Some landowners are excited to allow trappers on their property or plan to trap themselves, but other areas will be inaccessible to hunters.
Tools for hunters
Smucker expects the wolf hunting season to help wolf managers and biologists gain a better understanding of where wolves and their population. Hunters are encouraged to report wolf sightings, and even wolf tracks and scat, to their regional FWP office.
“Those hunter reports are really important to us,” Smucker said.
Wolves are challenging to hunt, but FWP offers some resources to help hunters determine where to hunt. FWP posts an online weekly wolf report that includes where wolves have been captured or collared.
“We have flight reports on there as well,” Smucker said.
Looking at those reports over a few years can give hunters an idea of where wolves might be located.
“There’s a lot of information available on the website that people could use to figure out where to start,” he said.
Smucker traps wolves to put radio collars on them, and before he ever sets up traps, he goes out looking for wolf signs.
“I really try to do a lot of scouting,” he said.
For Fields, a lot of it just comes down to fate.
“You’ve really got to get lucky,” he said. “They’re smart; they adapt to things.”