By Penny Preston
CODY, WYOMING – Wyoming’s first wolf hunt since reintroduction wrapped up December 31st. After 18 years of lawsuits, court action, and negotiations, Wyoming finally took over wolf management in 2012.
Wyoming’s wolf manager was there from the first. Wyoming’s Large Carnivore Section Supervisor Mark Bruscino remembered, “In 1995 I was asked by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to join the crew that went to Hinton Alberta to capture the first bunch of wolves that came to Yellowstone Park and Central Idaho.”
Bruscino is a witness to history. He helped capture and transport the first wolves back to Yellowstone in January 1995. He says the biologists were working so hard, they didn’t think about history:
He said, “But then we started seeing it in the evening on the news and then there was a court injunction that temporarily stopped it and shut everything down for about a day, and then we realized that it was really an international event.”
What followed was years of lawsuits and controversy between Wyoming and the federal government before the state took over wolf management in 2012. Bruscino oversaw the state’s first full hunt season. He gave it an A plus.
He explained, “The harvest was well distributed throughout the wolf packs in Northwest Wyoming. No wolf pack bore a disproportionate brunt of the harvest.”
Bruscino says the hunters acted ethically. “Hunters did what we asked them to do. They reported harvests immediately, fair chase was applied.”
Wyoming’s wolf season was over by sunset New Year’s Eve. The state did not reach it’s hunt quota of 52 wolves. But, in Wyoming, wolves can be killed year round outside the hunt area. Bruscino doesn’t believe kills in the predator zone will hurt the overall population.
He said, “We do have a reporting requirement. To our knowledge all wolves harvested in that area have been reported. And, we’ve obtained genetic samples from all of them as well.”
Bruscino says that is just part of Wyoming’s wolf studies already underway. He says trapping and collaring will take place through the winter.
42 wolves were killed legally in Wyoming’s 12 hunt areas. One was poached near Jackson. Wyoming doesn’t have a wolf-trapping season.