A hunter from Roberts reported Montana's first fair-chase wolf-hunting harvest Wednesday morning with the kill coming from the high country of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness.

The wolf hunting season opened with the backcountry deer and elk season Tuesday in the Absaroka-Beartooth's Hunting District 316. It also opened with the backcountry seasons of the Bob Marshall Wilderness' hunting districts 150, 151 and 280. The hunting districts are mostly in extremely remote areas.

According to Ron Aasheim with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the hunter was Perry Zumwalt of Roberts. He called at 10:46 a.m. Wednesday by cell phone from the backcountry on the state's wolf reporting hot line.

The kill took place sometime on Tuesday in the Lost Creek Drainage in the Park County portion of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. No other details on the kill were available, Aasheim said, including the age, sex or color of the wolf.

Wolf hunters have strict reporting requirements. Upon taking a wolf, hunters must call 877-397-9453 within 12 hours to file a report. They then must present the skull and hide to FWP within 10 days.

Seasons are run on a quota basis, and when the quota is reached, FWP will close the season with 24 hours' notice.

While the statewide wolf quota is 75 wolves, each of the state's three wolf management units has its own quota that can close that unit to hunting. Zumwalt's kill was in Wolf Management Unit 3, which had a quota of 12 wolves and now has 11 wolves that could still be taken by hunters.

For hunters and others to track the hunt, FWP has put together a page on its Web site that will be updated each weekday at 1 p.m. Hunters on the weekends can call 800-385-7826.

The FWP Web site tracks each hunting unit with the number of wolves harvested, number of wolves in the hunting quota and the number of wolves that can still be harvested. The Web site is fwp.mt.gov/hunting/planahunt/wolfStatus.html.

The general wolf season opener is still about six weeks away on Oct. 25, coinciding with the general deer and elk season across Montana. That's expected to generate much more interest than the backcountry season that opened Tuesday.

In the meantime, wolf license sales figures continue to grow. As of 5 p.m. Wednesday, a total of 9,091 wolf licenses had been sold in Montana, including 37 to nonresidents.