A gray wolf. (Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife)
The Montana House advanced two more bills this week aimed at reducing the state’s wolf population, which is three times higher than the benchmark of sustainability identified in the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks management plan.
Rep. Paul Fielder, R-Thompson Falls, carried both bills, which he described as adding “more tools in the toolbox” of management, by increasing opportunities to hunt gray wolves.
House Bill 258 would extend the wolf hunting season to align with the existing end of the spring black bear hunting season. Currently, the general wolf season runs from mid-September to mid-March, while the spring black bear season ends May 31 or mid-June, per FWP’s discretion.
“There’s a whole variety of tools that can be used, and this is another tool we’re trying to bring, to extend the wolf hunting season,” Fielder told members of the House during the Feb. 24 floor session.
The bill passed along partisan lines, with an amendment brought by a freshman Democratic legislator from outside Yellowstone National Park.
Rep. Scott Rosenzweig, D-Bozeman, asked the body to support a “bipartisan in spirit” amendment to create a 15-mile buffer zone around Yellowstone and Glacier national parks. The buffer regions would have a two-wolf quota and a bag limit of one wolf, and count illegally harvested wolves toward the quota.
“The livelihood of the national park’s gateway communities is tied to nature tourism. This is especially relevant in the face of the current turmoil from national politics,” Rosenzweig said. He listed off the hundreds of millions in tourism dollars funneled into communities near both parks, adding that “A lot of that comes from people who want to see wildlife, and one of the most sought after animals is wolves.”
Fielder called it a friendly amendment, saying he was surprised when the representative from across the aisle approached him asking for support. He said the buffer zones would serve to prevent large depredation of the Park’s wolf packs without fully extending the protections.
“You’ve gotta condition wildlife so they know the boundaries of where they can go,” Fielder said. “It’s a constant reminder every year to some of those wolves that you’re getting out of the park now, you’re not in a protected area any more.”
The amendment had 70 representatives support it, though one Democrat, Rep. Jamie Isaly, D-Livingston, called it a “good amendment to another bad wolf bill.”
Fielder’s other proposed piece of legislation, House Bill 259, would allow the use of infrared scopes and thermal imagery scopes while hunting on private lands at night, and amended language in Montana code to require the commission to take stronger management action.
“You know the wolf population was controlled originally by poison. We don’t want to do that. That’s a bad pathway to go, it affects many other critters. You can use sportsmen —licensed hunters, licensed trappers — that are regulated by laws, or you can use the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.”
As a government agency, Fielder said the latter option wasn’t always the best choice, and so Montana continued opting to empower local hunters to manage wolves.
Rep. Jill Cohenour, D-Helena, pushed back at the notion that the Legislature should insert itself in a species management decision.
“This is a continuation of going after the commission’s ability to be able to manage these wolves according to the local input form the folks that are on the ground and the information that they get from biologists,” she said. “I am disappointed in the fact that people are bringing all of those things to this legislature rather than putting this amount of energy towards the Commission to get them to listen to the folks on the ground.”
The bill passed second reading on Monday 54-45.
Both of Fielder’s bills will head to the Senate.
Montana is home to roughly 1,100 resident wolves, despite a law passed by the 2021 legislature requiring FWP to reduce the number of wolves to a “sustainable level,” which FWP has estimated around 450.
Currently, another bill, House Bill 176, is moving through the Senate and would let the state Fish and Wildlife Commission allow unlimited hunting when the wolf population is more than 550 animals. While the bill originally required unlimited hunting, an amendment in the House softened the language to merely “allow” for such a decision.
House Bill 176 was heard in the Senate Fish and Game Committee last week, but the committee had not taken action as of Wednesday morning.