By Mike Koshmrl
Jackson Hole Daily
Wildlife managers intend to target 44 wolves in the portion of Wyoming where Canis lupus is a managed species.
In most of the Equality State — about 85 percent — wolf-hunting quotas aren’t an issue, as the species is managed as a predator that can be killed indiscriminately and without limit.
But in a trophy game hunting area that covers most of Jackson Hole and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem there are mortality caps and rules. The draft regulations for those areas were released this week.
Factoring in other causes of death, the hunt is designed to drop Wyoming’s wolf population in the managed area from 210 to 160, Wyoming Game and Fish Department carnivore biologist Ken Mills said.
“There just isn’t room for any more wolves in the trophy game area,” Mills said. “It’s saturated and showing signs of being full.”
Wyoming’s hunt proposal is “conservative” in nature, Mills said, and quotas are similar to 2014, the year a federal district court judge’s decision stripped the state of the right to manage wolves. Endangered Species Act protections expired this spring, when an appeals court reversed the ruling.
The draft hunt quotas framing how many wolves can be killed precede the release of an annual population monitoring report that is customarily published in early April. Turnover of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel and the change of presidential administration have delayed the report.
“Basically, that draft report is under review right now by our own regional office,” said Tyler Abbot, Fish and Wildlife’s Wyoming field supervisor. “It’ll be out in the next week or so.”
Game and Fish, however, was provided the population data, and based its hunt proposals on the minimum-known wolf numbers from this past winter. Besides the 210 wolves estimated in the trophy game area, there were another 108 in Yellowstone National Park, 50 in the predator zone and nine on the Wind River Indian Reservation, Mills said. That would put the statewide count at 377, which is about as large a population as there has been since the large carnivores were reintroduced to the Northern Rockies in the mid-90s.
Teton County contains six hunt areas either partially or wholly. The mortality limit for those units totals 18 wolves.
A single wolf will be targeted in a hunt area running along on the west slope of the Tetons. The proposal for a non-contiguous unit, which includes the Leidy Highlands and private land south of Grand Teton National Park, permits hunters to harvest seven lobos. The unit primarily in the Teton Wilderness allows for three wolves to be hunted, while an area south of the Gros Ventre River has a cap of two.
Another area that runs all the way from the town of Jackson and South Highway 89 to the Hoback Rim permits three wolves to be killed. The last unit, a “flex” territory, oscillates seasonally between being a managed area, off limits to hunting, and a free-fire predator zone. The area begins at Highway 22 and stretches far to the south into the Wyoming Range. During the governed season, wolf harvest is capped at two.
The complete regulations are attached to the online version of this story at JHNewsAndGuide.com.
As drafted, the wolf-hunting season runs from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, except for in the flex zone where it begins Oct. 15.
Licenses, including fees, cost $20 for residents and $182 for nonresidents, and can be purchased over the counter.
Game and Fish has scheduled a public meeting on the wolf-hunting seasons for 6 p.m. May 22 at the Virginian Lodge. Comments on the proposal are also being accepted through June 19 and can be sent in online at WGFD.wyo.gov/Get-Involved/Public-Meetings.
The Game and Fish Commission is scheduled to vote to finalize wolf-hunting regulations at its July 18-20 meeting in Afton.
