Montana shuts down wolf hunt

With seven wolves harvested over the weekend in Northwest Montana and three in Southwest Montana, the state’s wolf-hunting season officially closed Monday night.

Weekend wolf kills brought the total harvest to 38 wolves by Sunday, so the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission ordered the closure for Wolf Management Unit One, which encompasses the northern tier of the state.

That area’s harvest quota was 41 wolves, and the closure was ordered to avoid a quota overrun.

“The wolf hunt was a success in WMU 1,” said Jim Williams, the state’s regional wildlife manager. “Now that we are so close to both the regional and statewide quotas, FWP and the FWP Commission have acted to close the wolf hunt for this year.”

Of the 38 wolves taken in the northern hunting unit, 18 were females and 20 were males.

Hunters as of Monday afternoon had taken a total of 72 wolves statewide, just shy of the overall quota of 75, about 15 percent of the statewide wolf population estimated at 500.

The state shut down the wolf hunt two weeks before the scheduled end of the season.

In Southwest Montana’s Wolf Management Unit Two, where there was a quota of 22, some 21 wolves (seven females and 14 males) have been harvested, prompting that area to close to wolf hunting on Monday as well.

Wolf hunting in the state’s third unit in Southeast Montana was closed Oct. 26 after hunters nearly filled the quota there in an early season hunt just outside Yellowstone National Park.

Those shootings — which included four members of the park’s Cottonwood Pack, which is famous among wolf watchers — drew criticism from conservationists. State officials have vowed to change their regulations next year to prevent a recurrence.

There were 13 wolves killed in Southwest Montana, where the quota was 12 wolves.

Even with the success among hunters, the number of wolves in Montana is expected to increase by 20 percent or more because wolves are such prolific breeders.

According to the Associated Press, state wildlife commissioner Bob Ream of Helena — a wildlife biologist who spent 20 years studying the animals — declared the 2009 hunt a success.

“For a first try, the state did very well,” Ream said Monday. “It happened quicker than a lot of us thought it would, but all in all, the geographic distribution of the harvest was good.”

Because the wolves killed were scattered across the state, Ream said the hunt might begin to put a dent in the number of livestock killed every year by the predators.

That has become an increasing problem in recent years as wolves expanded into areas inhabited by people and livestock.

Wolves returned to Northwest Montana naturally starting in the 1980s as packs were formed by animals moving down from Canada.

In Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho, wolves were reintroduced into the wild in the mid-1990s.

Wolf hunting still is open in Idaho, where 104 wolves have been taken out of a quota of 220. Wildlife officials there are thinking about extending the season in certain hunting zones.

Idaho Fish and Game Deputy Director Jim Unsworth told the Lewiston Tribune there may be one or two areas of the state where more time may be needed for hunters to thin specific wolf populations.

The Idaho season is scheduled to end Dec. 31.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.