A fifth wolf was found to have been shot and killed in Wolf Management Unit 313 earlier this month, the unit just north of Yellowstone National Park where the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission had put a quota of three wolves in place for this season, in part to keep from further disrupting packs from the national park.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks said that the fifth wolf had been found dead on Nov. 1 in heavy cover inside the unit from a gunshot wound that it likely sustained when four other wolves were killed in unit 313 all on Oct. 25. The wolf had a tracking collar that showed a mortality signal the first week of November, keying in officials to its death and location.
Fish, Wildlife and Parks said it believed the fifth wolf was “unknowingly wounded” when the four other wolves — two females and two males — were killed on the morning of Oct. 25. To start that day, no wolves had been killed in Wolf Management Unit 313, but after that morning, Fish, Wildlife and Parks issued its notice that the unit would close to hunting 24 hours later.
Fish, Wildlife and Parks said based upon a visit to the site where the fifth wolf was found, and other information, it did not believe the wolf was killed illegally and that the person who shot it did not know they had done so. It is a violation of Montana law to not try to recover a knowingly wounded animal when hunting.
But all five wolves killed this year in unit 313 came from one pack in Yellowstone National Park, the 8 Mile Pack, furthering concerns about pack fragmentation after 13 Yellowstone wolves were killed last winter. And the announcement has at least one wolf advocacy group saying the wolf’s death is another sign that Fish, Wildlife and Parks is more interested in allowing wolves to be killed than protecting them, even in an area where the chance to see a wolf is a highly sought-after tourist attraction.
Yellowstone National Park could propose more changes for next year
In August, the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission agreed to adopt an amendment to the 2023-24 wolf regulations from Region 3 Commissioner Susan Kirby Brooke that split Wolf Management Unit 313 back into two units — 313 and 316 — that would each have a quota of three wolves.
The two had previously been split but were combined into one unit with a six-wolf quota the past two seasons, but commissioners and members of the public who spoke at the meeting said part of the reason behind the change was because 313 is an easier unit to hunt as wolves funnel down into southwestern Montana’s Paradise Valley. Business owners in Gardiner said they did not like seeing so many wolves killed that close to town.
“A lot of these people are taking tourist business into these areas, and it hurts their business to have that many wolves taken out of the small of an area,” Commissioner Brooke explained at the meeting.
Two separate reports released late this summer found visitors to Yellowstone National Park support thousands of local jobs and spend upwards of $600 million in nearby communities, largely coming to see the park’s wild animals, including wolves, and thermal features.
Another proponent of the change was Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Cam Sholly, who wrote to the commission this summer saying 13 Yellowstone wolves had been killed the past winter, including eight in Montana and six of them in unit 313. The 13 wolves accounted for about 10% of the Yellowstone wolf winter population, the letter said, and came from three different packs that had either since fractured or dissolved.
Brooke said in an interview late last week that some people in Gardiner had already contacted her — “upset, rightfully so” — about the five wolves being killed and so early in the season. Last season, the six-wolf quota was not met until Dec. 25.
“It sounds like several hunters went out together and harvested wolves, which is their right,” Brooke said. “And it’s unfortunate, I think, because there was so much work put into trying to mitigate the impact to one pack and maybe spread it out a little more. And you know, that just, it didn’t work.”
She explained that the quotas are a “goal” rather than a hard number that cannot be surpassed, and it’s possible quotas are surpassed on a single day because multiple hunters in the field might be unaware of others who had shot an animal.
“My angle was to try to mitigate the hit to one pack, and it could have happened even if we had the quota at six and had the old 313. It could have still happened that way,” Brooke said.
Yellowstone National Park spokesperson Morgan Warthin said all five wolves killed in unit 313 were members of the 8 Mile Pack — two females and three males. One female and one male were fitted with tracking collars — one of which was the fifth wolf that was found dead — and those two were both about 1 1/2 years old and shot in the same area, Warthin said. Wolves typically become breeding pairs when they are around 3 to 5 years old, she said.
Warthin said the 8 Mile Pack started the fall with 25 members. She said in addition to the five killed in unit 313, three others are missing because monitors to date have only seen 17 of them.
Sholly, the park superintendent, said he appreciated that the commission had split last year’s unit 313 back into two units with three-wolf quotas, but “that didn’t work.” He told the Daily Montanan last week the park would likely suggest that next year’s regulations include issuing tags to wolf hunters in 313 — one wolf tag per hunter — to ensure a limited number of Yellowstone wolves are killed.
“I’m sure that that’s not going to make a lot of people happy, but what good is the quota when every year you’re going over it in different configurations?” Sholly said. “So, what I would hope for is some constructive conversations around solutions, and how do we collaborate on what the right outcome is in regard to configuration.”
He also suggested having a conversation with the commission about having a combined quota for units 313 and 316, so if five wolves were taken out of 313, only one would be allowed to be killed in 316. He said he wants the park and commission to continue to find ways to protect the core wolf population in Yellowstone.
But he said during the past three years, around 30 wolves from the northern packs have been killed, and he wants to be sure there is a focus on the cumulative effects of those deaths on the overall wolf population.
“What does taking whatever the number is, 30 wolves, out of just a couple packs in the northern range do?” he said. “I think that’s an important thing to focus on.”
Reward offered for information on fifth wolf
Marc Cooke, vice president of wolf advocacy group Wolves of the Rockies, said the organization was offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the identification and arrest of the hunter who shot the fifth wolf in unit 313 despite Fish, Wildlife and Parks determining nothing illegal occurred.
“This is another BS explanation from Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks trying to cover their incompetence and anti-wolf position,” the group said in a social media post on Nov. 6.
Cooke said he believes there are some outfitters and hunters who are staunchly anti-wolf and seek to kill the animals in an easy-to-hunt area despite quotas and restrictions. He said Fish, Wildlife and Parks, under the Gianforte administration, has been “complacent” because the administration sees wolves as a threat to game like elk and livestock such as sheep and cattle. Sholly reiterated earlier this month that there have been fewer than 10 livestock depredations caused by wolves in Montana’s Park County during the past decade.
“If you shoot an animal and don’t locate it, how is that ethical? If you shoot an animal just to kill it and satisfy your irrational hatred for these animals and your bloodlust for these animals, that’s poaching,” Cooke said. “The department, quite frankly, if you look at all their actions in the last 15 years, they’ve done little to nothing.”
Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesperson Greg Lemon said the fifth wolf would not count against the quota because the quota includes legally harvested wolves, and even though the wolf’s death was human-caused, it doesn’t count against the harvest quota.
He, like Brooke, also said that it’s possible for hunters to go over a quota in a specific unit.
“There’s no law that’s broken because the quota, that’s our signal to close the hunting within the district. Quotas aren’t necessarily a bag limit, per se,” Lemon said, adding that some other furbearers, for instance, have 48-hour closure notification times where hunting or trapping may also occur once a quota has been met.
Asked whether Fish, Wildlife and Parks has had any discussions among employees or with the commission about the five wolves killed in 313, he said it had not.
The commission was set to meet Nov. 12 to sign off on wolf trapping regulations for the season, and though no amendments have been proposed tied to unit 313, Brooke and Cooke said they expected to hear from the public both about the trapping regulations and about the hunting deaths in 313.
So far this season, which started in early September, 69 wolves have been killed in Montana. In the unit split off from unit 313, Wolf Management Unit 316, only one wolf has so far been reported to have been killed.
This article originally appeared on the Daily Montanan.
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