Montana Raises Wolf Hunting Cap to 452, Stops Shy of Statewide Quota

The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission on Thursday raised the state’s wolf hunting quota by about 37%, approving new regulations that cap the number of wolves that hunters and trappers can kill annually at 452 while stopping just shy of adopting a statewide quota.

The seven-member commission formalized the new rules after a full afternoon of debate and discussion, including hours of testimony from members of the public who were mostly set against a state management regime aimed at reducing the statewide wolf population, per a state legislative mandate.

To achieve this reduction, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) last month proposed a plan that blends the 2021 directive from Montana’s Republican-controlled legislature with its own recommendations, which are based on population estimates and projections that meet the minimum recovery criteria determined by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

According to FWP Game Bureau Chief Brian Wakeling, the state agency’s recommendations, while in accordance with statutory directives to shrink the wolf population, are also based on a conservative measure to ensure wolves don’t drop below federal delisting criteria, which sets a minimum of 15 breeding pairs, or 150 wolves.

“We received direction back in 2021 from the legislature to try to manage wolves at a lower yet sustainable level,” Wakeling told the commission Thursday. “Since that time, the department has presented and the commission has adopted increasingly aggressive approaches to trying to achieve that while the population has remained relatively stable. We have seen some decreases but it hasn’t been substantial.”

According to FWP’s 2024 Wolf Report, Montana is home to an estimated 1,091 wolves, a dozen fewer than the 1,103 wolves reported in 2023 and 65 fewer than the 1,156 estimated in 2022. Last year, hunters and trappers harvested 297 wolves, according to the report — the highest number since 2020. Montana’s wolf population peaked in 2011, the year Congress delisted wolves from the federal endangered species list. The population has declined slightly since, as hunting and trapping regulations have grown more liberal.

When FWP adopted its statewide management plan, the agency set 450 wolves “as our bottom line,” Wakeling said, adding that it provides a protective buffer that accounts for wolf mortality and “take” not related to hunting and trapping, such as management removals.

“If we were to hit 450 wolves, we would probably still be well above that federal listing criteria,” Wakeling said. “We built that protection in place.”

Still, FWP acknowledged that its latest proposal is engineered to make a reduction to Montana’s wolf population “more visible” to state lawmakers, particularly as the species proves to be resilient even with more relaxed hunting and trapping standards in place. To make a dent in the wolf population, FWP proposed removing regional quotas entirely while increasing the statewide quota of wolves that can be harvested to 500.

Even if hunters and trappers did manage to kill 500 wolves, Wakeling said he didn’t expect the state’s overall population would decline by a corresponding value.

“If we were able to obtain a harvest of 500 it’s likely that we wouldn’t see more than a reduction of 200 wolves,” Wakeling said, explaining that breeding season and initial recruitment balances out the population losses from trapping and hunting.

Wolf advocates, however, characterized the new regulations as an open season on a keystone species that drives the tourism economy and provides critical ecological functions. The new regulations permit the highest number of wolves to be hunted and trapped since wolves in the Northern Rockies were stripped of Endangered Species Act protections in 2011.

“The regulations approved … defy science and ethics – they greenlight a season of unrelenting wolf extermination,” Lizzy Pennock, carnivore coexistence attorney for WildEarth Guardians, said. “As Montana sentences a record number of wolves to be slaughtered this year, it is clearer than ever that the state will drive these keystone predators to extinction unless they are federally protected. We are considering all avenues to protect wolves.”

State and federal wildlife agencies are already under legal pressure for their management of wolves in the northern Rockies. Earlier this month, a federal district judge pointed to the inadequacies of Montana’s wolf management as a central factor for his ruling that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it determined that gray wolves in the western U.S. — including wolves in Montana — do not warrant federal protections.  The ruling detailed “serious concerns” about Montana’s integrated patch occupancy model (iPOM) for estimating the state’s wolf population, which some experts believe overestimates the abundance of wolves.

Speaking to commissioners Thursday, Wakeling emphasized that the state combines its iPOM estimates with field monitoring and minimum counts. He also said that, between 2011 and 2021, Montana didn’t set thresholds for harvesting wolves, and yet the population remained relatively stable and healthy.

“It was unlimited. Since that time, we have liberalized season lengths, bag limits, and we have liberalized some methods of take,” Wakeling said.

Although the commissioners largely followed the recommendations forwarded to them by FWP, they also debated 10 amendments put forth by individual members. Although they rejected most of the amendments, the commissioners departed from FWP’s proposal by stopping short of agreeing to a statewide quota, opting instead for several carve-out exceptions in high-profile regions near Yellowstone National Park, including by setting a 60-wolf sub-quota in FWP’s Region 3 (Southwest Montana). The commission also capped the harvest at three wolves in Wolf Management Unit (WMU) 313 and three in WMU 316 — the two zones adjacent to the park, where the commission assigned separate quotas.

In the fall of 2021, FWP removed wolf hunting quotas near Yellowstone, where wolf watching is a significant tourism driver; however, the agency ultimately reinstated quotas after hunters killed 20% of the park’s wolf population the following season.  

In much of the state, livestock conflicts remain a key factor in wolf management decisions, with livestock producers supporting initiatives to reduce the wolf population. According to the FWP Wolf Report, wolves killed 62 livestock in 2024, including 35 cattle and 16 sheep. This marks an increase from 2023, though it is still lower than the average over the past decade. FWP credited a more aggressive approach to depredation control with helping keep recent losses relatively low. 

Gray wolves are still listed under the ESA as endangered in 44 states, and are considered threatened in Minnesota; however, in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and portions of eastern Oregon and Washington, the wolves are part of a “distinct population segment” managed under state jurisdiction, with their respective legislatures passing laws allowing wolf harvests, while setting quotas and regulations to manage the populations.

On Thursday, the state wildlife commission also increased individual bag limits to 30 wolves, allowing 15 wolves to be hunted or trapped on a single license —15 wolves under one trapping license and 15 wolves under one hunting license. To reach that total, at least five wolves must be hunted and five trapped in regions 1 (northwest) or 2 (west-central), where the wolf population is most concentrated.

“There will be a gradient of wolf harvest opportunities relative to wolf density,” FWP Chief of Conservation Policy Quentin Kujala told the commissioners. “Our response to that gradient manifests in that 15 bag limit, but the only way to get to 15 is if at least five wolves are in Region 1 or 2, where most of the state’s wolves are.”

Other changes the commission made to the 2025/2026 Furbearer and Wolf Hunting and Trapping Regulations include:

• The commission approved a regulation allowing a trapper to gain prior authorization from FWP to temporarily leave a live wolf in the trap for the purpose of radio collaring by FWP. In this circumstance the wolf would not be harvested, but the trapper would immediately notify FWP, per the prior authorization arrangement, and a FWP official would radio collar the wolf and release it from the trap.  
• The commission approved regulation changes to require that all harvested wolves must be presented to FWP for inspection within 10 days of harvest for pelt tagging, tissue sampling, and tooth extraction. A trapper must present the hide and skull for tagging and sampling within 10 days of harvest. It is now illegal to leave a wolf hide and skull in the field after harvest, even if the hunter or trapper doesn’t want to keep the animal.  
• The commission removed trapping setbacks on roads closed to motor vehicle and OHV traffic (except snowmobiles and unless in a designated no trapping area) in Mineral County and on the Spotted Bear Ranger District in northwest Montana.  

FWP staff will finalize the regulations and release them online in the coming days. Printed regulations will be available later this summer. 

Archery wolf season opens Sept. 6. Trapping season will open Dec. 1, except within the geographic area identified by federal court order. Just like last season, trapping within the geographic area will be limited to Jan. 1 to Feb. 15. The geographic area is all of FWP regions 1, 2 and 3, and portions of regions 4 and 5. This area, with limited trapping dates, is the same as last year, according to the FWP proposal.   

Outside this geographic area, wolf trapping closes March 15, 2026, or when a quota is met.   

Wakeling said the measures balance a tension between the legislative mandate to reduce the wolf population, and opposition from wolf-advocacy groups who say the state is overestimating its wolf population and recklessly assenting to a radical wolf-hunting agenda.

“We’ve been trying to follow legislative direction and reduce the population, but we don’t want to eliminate wolves,” Wakeling said. “We’re not trying to drive them down to 450 but all of the tools we have used so far have not resulted in a tremendous change in the harvest. So choosing to make a single license valid for the use for multiple wolves, for example, there’s some opportunity to provide consistency between trapping licenses and hunting licenses.”

While many members of the public expressed dismay at the state’s continued trend toward allowing more wolves to be killed, proponents of the state’s recommendations, including rancher Dean Peterson, were disappointed that “the original proposal got watered down today.”

Commissioner Brian Cebull, who represents Region 5, said he’d hoped to adopt more aggressive measures, too, including through amendments to extend hunting and trapping seasons.

The commission will take another pass at revising wolf hunting and trapping regulations next August.

“We added a few things here today but I don’t think we added enough. I’m disappointed in that but I want to see what happens,” Cebull said. “We’ll be back next year.”

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