One month into Montana’s wolf-hunting season, 6,000 people have purchased licenses to hunt the state’s 635 wolves.
Montana hunters entered the wolf season early in September with looser regulations than in previous years. Due to public pressures concerning livestock attacks and declines in elk herds, the state’s wildlife officials lowered license fees, increased the per-person bag limit from three to five, and extended the 2013-2014 wolf season through March to lower the state’s wolf population.
“The population is larger than we want it to be,” George Pauley, wildlife management section supervisor for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, told the Great Falls Tribune. “[The Fish and Wildlife Commission] may take action to reduce opporunitites if harvest is greater than the population can withstand.”
But conservation groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity, Earth First!, and Wolves of the Rockies are critical of these changes. In August, Earth First! began circulating a 12-page manual called an illustrative guide to destroying wolf traps, releasing wolves caught in traps, and various methods for stopping wolf hunts.
“Somehow, the National Rife Association, yuppie trophy hunters, cattle barons, and the Obama Administration are in cahoots in an effort that promises to wipe wolves clean off the planet,” the first page reads. “And in that case, we choose to be saboteurs for the wild.”
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Montana’s Wolves by the Number
- 15鈥擭umber of wolves harvested in Montana, as of today.
- 225鈥擬ontana wolves harvested last year.
- 182鈥擠ays of 2013-2014 wolf hunting season in Montana.
- 5鈥擸ears since the Gray Wolf was removed from the endangered species list in the Northern Rockies.
- $50鈥擯rice for out-of-state wolf hunting licenses in Montana.
- $19鈥擯rice for in-state wolf hunting licenses in Montana.