http://www.dailyinterlake.com/sports/outdoor_life/article_ec2589ae-d4ce-11de-b59c-001cc4c002e0.htmlWolf success scattered widely
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By JIM MANN/Daily Inter Lake | 0 comments
Wolves were harvested in a wide variety of circumstances and places in Northwest Montana this year, but there were some similar trends in the hunt.
Jim Williams, the Region One wildlife manager for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, kept close tabs on the hunt that closed Monday after 38 wolves were harvested in Wolf Management Unit One, covering the northern tier of the state.
As reports of wolf kills came in, Williams plotted them on a map that now shows a telling picture: six in the Thompson Falls area, three in Lincoln County, two in the North Fork Flathead, three in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, two in the South Fork Flathead, two in Swan Valley and others scattered around the area.
“You couldn’t have scripted a better hunt in terms of the distribution,” Williams said. “We obviously knew we had a viable wolf population and quite a number of packs and the hunt corroborated that.”
Williams admitted that he didn’t think, prior to the season, that the quota of 41 wolves for Wolf Management Unit One would be met, particularly three weeks into the season.
In retrospect, Williams said he thinks the quota was met so quickly because Region One has the highest density of hunters, per square mile, compared to any other part of the state.
John Vore, the state’s Flathead area wildlife biologist, said the distribution meant that numbers were curbed but packs survived.
Successful hunters filled out wolf harvest survey forms that reveal several trends for the region.
With the exception of a hunter who reported shooting a wolf at 300 yards in the Thompson Falls area, most wolves were shot from 50 yards away or less.
“We’re in the big green zone, the big conifer forest, and that’s how far away you see things,” Vore said.
Nearly all of the wolves that were harvested in the region were yearlings, and most were silver-coated.
The heaviest wolf that was weighed by Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials came in at 98 pounds, contrary to rural myths.
“People ask me what’s the deal about the 200-pound wolf from Libby,” Vore said. “Well there is no 200-pound wolf. We don’t even have 150-pound wolves like they might have up in Alaska.”
The biggest Montana wolves will weigh no more than 120 pounds, Vore said, but they often look bigger than they weigh because of their heavy coats and lanky legs.
Most of the survey forms reveal that hunters saw other wolves in the area when they fired. One hunter reported seeing six other wolves.
Most hunters said they primarily were hunting for other big game and incidentally encountered their wolves.
However, Vore said he spoke with a few hunters who were out specifically hunting wolves, some using predator calls or attempting to howl in wolves, but with no success.
Another trend Vore and other officials noticed at the region’s check stations: There were far fewer hunter complaints about wolves compared to last year, when the planned wolf hunt was canceled by court order.
“This wolf hunt seemed to provide some cure to the social anxiety we saw last year,” said Region One Supervisor Jim Satterfield, recalling hunter protests in front of regional headquarters in Kalispell.
“It reduced the frustration. People didn’t feel so helpless” about the lack of management for a wolf population that has been proliferating for several years.
“We think we showed the powers-that-be that we can run a wolf hunt,” Satterfield said.
