Yellowstone superintendent calls for relief from wolf hunting after another deadly winter

By means of Mike Koshmrl

The winter of 2023-2024 turned out to be the third deadliest for Yellowstone wolves in decades since Wolf was reintroduced into the landscape in 1995. A total of 13 wolves were shot by legal hunters, captured by hunters, killed by poachers or died from injuries that were probably related to hunting.

As in previous winters, the vast majority of wolves that found their fate after straying outside the protections of Yellowstone National Park did so in Montana, near the park’s northern border. Eight wolves were legally hunted or trapped in Montana’s hunting grounds, one was poached, and two more died from suspected gunshot wounds. By comparison, one park wolf each died in Wyoming and Idaho’s hunting grounds.

All told, the hunt has caused the “dissolution” of three of the park’s 11 wolf packs, according to a letter Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly sent to the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission asking for help.

“These losses represent approximately 10 percent of the Yellowstone wolf population in the winter of 2023/2024,” Sholly wrote in a June 26 letter obtained by WyoFile. “Yellowstone is recognized as the best place in the world to view and study free-ranging wolves, attracting millions of visitors and generating significant economic activity for the region.”

Yellowstone’s administrator thanked Montana officials for reinstituting quotas on hunting lands bordering the park two years ago. The state agency took the step after the 2021-22 hunting season, when a record 25 wolves were shot or captured outside the park’s boundaries in the three border states.

But Sholly also called for additional changes that would help Yellowstone “achieve its wildlife conservation and economic objectives.” Specifically, he asked Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to consider splitting one of its wolf hunting units, 313, in two — and then dividing the current wolf kill quota of six animals between the two new areas. Alternatively, if wolf hunting unit 313 remains intact, he asked Montana wildlife managers to reduce the quota to four wolves to ease the impact on park packs.

The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission has not formally responded to the 3-week-old letter. It would have been unusual to write back to the park because the letter was likely interpreted as a public comment on the agency’s under-review wolf hunting rules — and the typical commission response would be to change the rules, said Greg Lemon, a spokesman for Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Favorable response

Although the Fish, Wildlife and Parks’ draft wolf hunting regulations do not yet include any of the changes Sholly wanted, Bozeman, Montana, Commissioner Susan Kirby Brooke formally introduced an amendment that would grant the park’s main request: splitting Wolf Hunting Zone 313 in two and dividing the quota to six wolves.

The amendment and general regulations for wolf hunting in Montana for 2024-2025 are open for public comment through July 25.

Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials responded positively to Kirby Brooke’s amendment. The change would have “no adverse biological effects,” the agency wrote. “Without a change to the overall quota, the department expects the season to meet statutory population management guidelines,” the agency’s statement on the amendment said.

Much of the concern about the effects of Montana’s hunting on Yellowstone’s wolves has stemmed from actions taken by the Montana Legislature. During the 2021 legislative session, lawmakers passed a bill directing the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission to reduce wolf numbers. That resulted in changes to hunting zones that led to record numbers of wolves killed in Yellowstone during the 2021-’22 season.

Following that legislation, the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission also passed regulations allowing the baiting and hunting of wolves at night. According to Sholly’s letter, the state also lifted a ban on the use of telemetry equipment for wolf hunting around the same time. Normally, a significant portion of the wolves in Yellowstone wear tracking collars, meaning they can potentially be located by hunters equipped with very high-frequency receivers.

“The use of these practices is contrary to fair hunting,” Sholly wrote, “and we request that you reinstate these prohibitions in your regulations.”

It’s unclear whether those requests will be granted. The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission is set to finalize regulations for hunting wolves in Montana on Aug. 16. In the meantime, the draft regulations propose to keep the controversial practices intact: baiting wolves is explicitly legal, night hunting on private land is permitted, and the regulations say nothing about the use of telemetry devices. Kirby Brooke’s amendment also does not address the practices.

There is no legal mandate, however, so the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission has the discretion to change those rules, said Lemon, the agency spokesman. But it is also unclear whether those practices have had any effect on wolf populations, he said.

“Certainly, the ability to harvest wolves has expanded over the last few years,” Lemon said. “But even with that expanded ability, the harvest has remained relatively stable.”

Whose wolves are they?

Lemon disagrees that Montana’s hunting is deadly to the “Yellowstone wolves.”

“Wolves move across the landscape,” he said. “They spend time in the park and in Montana. The way I see it, they’re not ‘Yellowstone wolves.'”

Yellowstone bases its characterization on the places where the wolves roam most of the time.

“Our reasoning for counting these as Yellowstone wolves is supported by GPS/VHF radio collar data showing that these packs are in the park at least 96 percent of the year,” Sholly wrote.

There is evidence that wolves leaving Yellowstone are particularly vulnerable to hunting. Wolves living in the park see dozens of people, which can lead to habituation and brazen behavior.

Data shows that about 85 percent of all wolves killed in Montana’s two wolf hunting areas north of Yellowstone come from packs that live primarily in the park, Sholly’s letter said.

Hunting in Montana north of the Yellowstone border has not only taken its toll by breaking up packs. Recent research has shown that hunting disrupts the natural balance of social dogs. It may even stimulate reproduction.

During Montana’s 2021-’22 wolf hunting season, the alpha female of Yellowstone’s 8-Mile Pack was legally captured in a border unit. Three subordinate females were subsequently taken as breeding stock, resulting in 18 pups being produced in one pack — which grew to include as many as 25 wolves, according to Yellowstone’s annual wolf report.

Even on the heels of the winters of 2021-22 and 2023-24 — the first and third deadliest wolf hunting seasons in Yellowstone to date — the park’s wolf population actually grew. By year’s end, the population was estimated at 124 animals and 11 packs, a notable increase from recent years.

“Some people will bring that up and say, ‘What’s so bad about that?’” Dan Stahler, chief biologist at the Yellowstone Wolf Project, told WyoFile.

It’s important, he said, because of what the National Park Service stands for. “Our mission in Yellowstone is to protect and preserve natural processes, including natural social dynamics,” Stahler said.

While tensions remain over the impact of wolf hunting seasons in Montana, hunting seasons in Yellowstone’s other two border states, Idaho and Wyoming, have significantly less impact on the park’s wolves.

In the upcoming 2024 hunting season, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department will allow up to 16 wolves to be killed in hunting units bordering the park — that’s three fewer than in 2023. However, very few Yellowstone wolves are killed during hunts in the state. That’s due to a combination of the location of Yellowstone packs, the lay of the land, and large wilderness complexes bordering the park on the Wyoming side.

“I think on average about one wolf that is shot in a hunt in Wyoming comes from a pack in Yellowstone,” Stahler said. “It’s been proven that (Wyoming) has relatively little impact on park wolves.”

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This article was originally published by WyoFile and is republished here with permission. WyoFile is an independent, nonprofit news organization focused on the people, places and policies of Wyoming.

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