Clouds are rolling in across the Big Sky State. The war on wolves keeps raging, and it’s not just wolves at risk – it’s the state sovereignty that Montanans value most.
In recent years, Montana’s wolf policy has grown increasingly aggressive. This year, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) approved a 452-wolf harvest quota – the highest in the state’s history. The anti-wolf lobby, and FWP, are playing with fire – scientifically, and politically. At current harvest levels, the wolf population could decline below a sustainable threshold within five years. And the federal court has shown that if FWP crosses legal or scientific lines, it will intervene.
Without moderate, science-based wolf management, Montana will lose the right to manage its own wildlife; it’ll lose the freedom to define itself. In a state that values autonomy so highly, that threat is as existential as the loss of the wolf. Montana’s wolf policy, right now, is driven by weak science and strong political biases. And for the anti-wolf lobby, there’s another risk: with the U.S. Wildlife Service poised to take over, current policy threatens to disempower FWP, and the hunters, ranchers and outfitters who depend on it to operate.
For many, the ecological and economic defenses of wolves are clear. In the Rockies, wolves are a keystone species. By regulating deer and elk populations, they stabilize the ecosystem, restore landscapes, and boost biodiversity. Look at Yellowstone: wolves help the Rockies’ rivers run, its forests grow, and the Big Sky beat with birdwings. And wolves make money: through tourism, which employs one in 15 Montana workers, wolves generate $35 million annually in the Greater Yellowstone Area. Wolves inspire hate like few other animals, but they inspire love the same way – drawing crowds of tourists, and their credit cards, to Montana each year.
The response – that wolves kill livestock and game – does not stand up to scrutiny. There are two million cattle in Montana; fifteen losses were claimed in 2023, 45 in 2024, and eight in 2025. Ranchers are compensated by the Montana Livestock Loss Board. And excessive wolf hunting might actually increase livestock predation. Meanwhile, though hunters argue that wolves kill too many elk, Montana has more elk now than it did before wolf reintroduction in 1995: 95,000 then, and 135,000 today. Both well over the state target of 50,000.
The war on wolves is political, not scientific. Its warriors have their teeth in our parks agency. FWP must shake itself loose: its credibility, and managing authority, depend on it.
In November 2023, an injunction was issued by federal District Judge Donald Molloy, limiting wolf trapping and snaring in much of Montana. In August 2025, Molloy ruled that USFWS must reconsider its denial of a 2021 petition to relist Montana’s gray wolves under the Endangered Species Act. He argued that USFWS didn’t adequately consider wolves’ historic range in the West, and that FWP’s population estimate model, “iPOM”, is biased, inaccurate and outdated, often overestimating population numbers.
FWP is on thin ice. With each wolf killed, that ice is more likely to crack beneath federal weight.
If Montana wolves are relisted under the ESA, hunting and trapping will be suspended. In genuine conflict areas, fast, flexible, local decision-making will be replaced with strict, slow-moving federal procedure. The anti-wolf lobby will get what they hate even more than wolves: political disempowerment. Deference, on their own land, to the Swamp 3,000 miles away.
FWP can avoid this. It can lower its wolf harvest quota, and strengthen the methodology that grounds it. It can focus on strategic, practical and inclusive stakeholder engagement. It can invest in non-lethal wolf deterrents, like range riders, guardian dogs, electric fencing and noisemakers, which are at least as effective as killing wolves.
Colorado offers precedent. It partners with nonprofits to educate communities on nonlethal deterrents, and provide resources for coexistence. Its Technical Working Group ensures scientific integrity, while its Stakeholder Advisory Group integrates local voices, from ranchers to conservationists. All this is possible in Montana. And there’s bipartisan support: last legislative session, a bill to allow unlimited wolf hunting was rejected on both sides of the aisle. The extreme anti-wolf minority is vocal, but it’s still a minority.
By moderating wolf policy, FWP can protect the traditions, wildlife, and lands that make Montana great, before it loses the right to do so. It can protect Montana’s integrity and autonomy, free from federal snares. It can keep Montana what it is: the land of shining mountains, the last best place on earth.
Georgia Good lives in Polebridge.