Gray Wolf

• The Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf population met the biological recovery criteria in 2002.
• A decision to remove the wolf from the federal Endangered Species List is set to take effect in late March, but legal challenges are already underway.
• While legal challenges work through the courts, FWP and USDA Wildlife Services, and the Tribes will continue to carry out day-to-day wolf management activities.

• Federal rules require Montana to maintain a minimum of at least 10 breeding pairs and a minimum of 100 wolves.
• Montana is committed to maintaining a secure, recovered population and will manage for 400 or more wolves.
• Today, 422 wolves inhabit Montana in about 73 packs and 39 breeding pairs.
• The population has been increasing an average of about 28 percent per year since 2004.

Gray Wolf

• Montana's FWP Commission recently adopted a wolf-hunting season structure.
• Any wolf season, however, is contingent upon federal delisting.
• In light of legal challenges, wolf hunting licenses will not be sold until Montana is assured a season will occur.
• Wolf hunting in Montana would be closely managed by harvest quotas, which must be approved by the FWP Commission. Quotas would establish a total number of wolves that could be taken by hunters.
• Harvest quotas could be adopted later this year, but that would also depend on the status of lawsuits. They would be based on the wolf population status, wildlife manager recommendations, and public comment.
• Wolves would be carefully monitored before, during, and after the hunting seasons to determine how the wolf population responds.
• Season dates were set for a backcountry wolf season in four Wilderness Area hunting districts to run September 15 through November 30. A general wolf season would run October 26 through November 30. Limited hunting, in lieu of trapping, would be allowed December 1 through December 31.
• A wolf trapping season will not be considered until 2010.

• Montana will continue to monitor wolves, and is required to annually report wolf population's status to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for at least five years.
• USFWS will also examine how the each state carries out its management plan and responds to respective state laws.

• Montana's wolf conservation and management is expected to cost about $1 million a year.
• To fund wolf management, Montana will continue efforts to secure federal funding and combine it with revenue from the sale of wolf hunting licenses, private sources, and other in-kind contributions.

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