By EVE BYRON Independent Record
Montana’s wolf hunting season could be extended until Jan. 31 under a proposal that will be considered by the state’s Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission next week.
The season currently is slated to be over on Dec. 31, unless the 220-wolf quota is attained. So far, 46 wolves have been harvested.
“The real issue is if we don’t reach the quota by Dec. 31, whether we should extend the season,” said Ron Aasheim, spokesman for the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
One of the goals of the hunt is population control over the estimated minimum of 566 wolves known to inhabit Montana. FWP estimates that between the removal of the 220 wolves through hunting and death by other natural or human-caused mortality, balanced with new pups being born and the movement of animals, the wolf population next year should decline by 25 percent to 425.
State officials add that a competing model predicts a 7 percent decline with the 220-wolf quota.
In a cover letter for the FWP meeting, scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. Nov. 10 in Helena, officials note that the objectives for the season are to maintain a wild population while lessening their impacts on livestock and big-game populations.
Aasheim noted that the agency is considering impacts to wolf populations by extending the season, since it would overlap with the wolf breeding season, which is when some wolves leave their packs to start new ones.
“There is the potential to impact pack formation, the hierarchy and social things — in most packs the alpha female and male are breeding and it could disrupt that,” Aasheim said. “It’s also the time when males or females are dispersing, looking for a mate, and if you take one away we’re not sure how that would impact them.
“But it’s not something we’re overly concerned about and will learn from. We just want to get closer to the quota,” Aasheim added.
He expects the wolf harvest numbers to increase if snow falls during hunting season and the wolves follow the big game out of the mountains into areas more easily reached by hunters. More than 16,000 wolf hunting licenses have been issued.
“We know we have some people who are out there just hunting wolves,” Aasheim said. “But the vast majority are being shot incidentally to other big-game hunting.”
This is the second time Montana has held a wolf hunting season. They were hunted to near extirpation in the Northern Rockies, but their numbers rebounded with migrations from Canada, coupled with the wolf reintroduction effort in the greater Yellowstone area in the mid-1990s. Wolf numbers increased to the point they could be removed from the list of animals protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The first hunt in Montana was held in 2009, but canceled in 2010 after wolves were returned to federal protection by U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy. They were once again removed from federal protection by an act of Congress, which allowed for this year’s hunt in Idaho and Montana.
Idaho’s hunt runs through March 31 in much of the state, and no quota has been identified.
The FWP Commission meeting begins at 8:30 a.m. at the FWP Montana Wild Outdoor Learning Center, 2668 Broadwater, adjacent to Spring Meadow Lake State Park, instead of at FWP Headquarters.