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October 20, 2009 in Idaho
Idaho prepares to shutter wolf hunt in 3 zones
BOISE — Wolf hunters in some parts of Idaho are nearing their quotas, prompting state wildlife managers to prepare to shutter the season there once the legal harvest limit has been reached.
Department of Fish and Game officials are allowing for a total of 220 wolves to be killed across the state, but the kills are divided up into 12 hunting zones.
In three of the zones — the Upper Snake zone, the Palouse-Hells Canyon zone and the McCall-Weiser zone — kills are approaching the state’s limits.
In the Upper Snake zone, for instance, three of the five-wolf quota have been bagged. In the Palouse-Hells Canyon zone, the limit is five wolves and hunters have taken two.
And in the McCall-Weiser zone, 12 of the allowed 15 wolves have been shot, including one illegally.
Montana, which also has a wolf hunt, has already closed gray wolf hunting near Yellowstone National Park after nine of the predators were killed there, though the state is sticking with its 75-wolf season quota.
© Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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keelyb on October 20 at 2:14 p.m.
This kind of archaic trophy hunting is deplorable. If we need to control population or safeguard livestock, give affected ranchers permission to cull the packs — institute quotas if needed.
jp on October 20 at 4:16 p.m.
I am a hunter and hunting is my life. i work all year so I can go do what i love for a few short weeks. If you care about wolves you should care about all the animals we have in Idaho. the gray wolf kills for sport and kill just to kill it will kill any animal it comes across. eighty percent of the time it will leave the carcase uneatin. If we dont manage this predator, there will not be one single animal left to hunt or just to look at. I guarantee if we did not manage the wolves in ten years there would not be a single animal left in the woods.
I think the puplic should put way more presure on the fish and game to give us facts about this subject. (US) sportsman do not pay them millions of dollars a year for them to sit in there trucks and offices and do nothing. The fish and game are so worried about how they are going to get grant money that they forget about what there job is. let me see we need more money so lets raise all lisence and tags and shorten the season. That makes sence! oh yea i forgot we are dealing with a state agency. It takes five people to do a one man job.
aaront on October 20 at 8:16 p.m.
JP, WDFW has published the facts; clearly you just choose to ignore them. The fact is, wolf predation is a small fraction of animal kills—for instance, they account for less than 1% of livestock losses, whereas by comparison, illegal killing of livestock by humans accounts for 80%! And as far as your claim that “if we did not manage the wolves in ten years there would not be a single animal left in the woods”, that’s so nonsensical it almost isn’t worth scrutiny. Face it: wolves and their prey co-existed for thousands upon thousands of years without your “help.” JP, you dishonor the honorable pastime of hunting.
aaront on October 20 at 9:28 p.m.
Interestingly, I ran across this stat tonight from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation:
In 1994 Montana was home to 48 wolves & 94,000 elk. Elk hunters enjoyed a 16.7% success rate.
In 2008, the wolf population had risen to 497, elk had increased to 150,000, and elk hunters enjoyed a 21.5% success rate.
As you can see, hunting success INCREASED even as wolf populations increased. In other words, JP, don’t blame the wolves for your poor aim.