News
Three Yellowstone Wolves Killed Early On In Montana’s Hunting Season
Published
3 years agoon
By
AP News
Yellowstone National Park wolf biologists report that the park’s Junction Butte Pack, consisting of 27 wolves, lost three of them to Montana hunters during the first week of Montana’s wolf hunting season.
The Junction Butte Pack transcends Yellowstone’s northern range and is the most viewed wolf pack in the world.
Multiple recent overflights conducted by the park confirmed the pack size has been reduced from 27 to 24 animals, losing two female pups and one female yearling.
Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) confirms three wolves were killed outside of Yellowstone in the general vicinity of where the Junction Butte Pack was traveling in mid-September.
Yellowstone wolves in the northern range spend an estimated 5% of the time outside the park, usually in late fall.
For more than a decade, the state of Montana limited the number of wolves taken from Montana wolf management unit 313 near Gardiner and unit 316 near Cooke City, which are immediately adjacent to the park’s northern boundary.
Ninety-eight percent of wolves in Montana are outside units 313 and 316.
Recent state changes to hunting and trapping have lifted restrictions within these units making Yellowstone’s wolf population in the northern range extremely vulnerable.
Montana has also authorized baiting from private property.
More than 33% of the boundary Yellowstone shares with Montana is within one mile of private property where baiting is now permissible.
Visitor spending within communities that are 50 miles from Yellowstone exceeds $500 million per year, tens of millions of which is spent by visitors coming to watch wolves and supporting Montana businesses in gateway communities.
The Junction Butte Pack formed in 2012 in the northern section of the park.
They are the most observed pack in Yellowstone because they den within view of the Northeast Entrance Road and the road to Slough Creek Campground, providing thousands of visitor’s daily views.
The pack had eight pups this year.
Don White
September 28, 2021 at 10:38 am
There’s something fundamentally wrong with a person who wants to kill a wolf just for the sport of it. See, for example, the idiot governor of Montana, Greg Gianforte.
David Wolfe
September 28, 2021 at 4:57 pm
I can understand your opinion but disagree with them. This article failed to mention the plummeting population of elk and especially moose in this are. A pack of 27 individuals is NOT normal in most areas but the Yellowstone wolves tend to overpopulate due to the massive food source. The article fIled to mention that this high density of wolves tends to increase the incidence of parasites and disease such as ectopic mange. Many wolves in Montana have already been affected by this overpopulation. If humans do not limit the wolf population within the boundries of biological science for a healthy population it is more cruel than maintining a heLthy population. It is easy for the uninformed to “love wolves to their death.” Those of us that live here with them know this Nd see these well meaning people all the time. I still see the wolf I saw with half its fur missing one wintervravGed with mange. It died a miserble death. No reporters seem to tell the public this sobering truth.
Andy Widdifield
September 29, 2021 at 4:40 am
I work on a large cattle ranch and so far have got 5 this year,they are pure killers,not just for food they kill for sport.its a fact.have witnessed it multiple times.gianforte uses common sense and bases things not on emotion but facts,he’s a breath of fresh air after the last several years of that last idiot.
Randy Clabaugh
September 28, 2021 at 11:58 am
good job smoke a pack
Merv Bontrager
September 29, 2021 at 8:01 pm
Good, I hope they many more. They are devastating to elk and deer in the western states, and need to be severely reduced.
Tiffany Mauzy
September 30, 2021 at 7:51 am
You need stop killing wolves they help the planet so hunters need to stop killing wolves