Details provide insight to first hunts
Posted: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 10:50 pm
Details from the backcountry hunting season are now emerging, since Fish, Wildlife and Parks has had time to interview successful hunters in the Absaroka-Beartooth and Bob Marshall/Scapegoat wildernesses.
Here’s some of what the agency learned from the interviews:
• Out of the nine wolves killed so far in the Absaroka-Beartooth, four were males and five were females.
• The nine wolves’ ages were: four pups from spring 2009, one yearling, three adults, and one older adult — the Cottonwood female, which was estimated to be 5 to 6 years old.
• The distance at which the wolves were shot ranged from 60 to 350 yards, with the average 196 yards.
• Seven out of the nine successful hunters were from Park County, one from Carbon County and one from Winifred.
• Four of the hunters were with an outfitter; five were on their own. Of the five on their own, four were primarily hunting for wolves. The other hunters were primarily seeking elk.
• Seven of the nine hunters said other wolves were present at the time they shot successfully.
• In Montana, based on collared wolves found dead, the rate of wolves killed illegally is an estimated 5 percent of the total wolf population, plus or minus 3 percent. In the Northern Rockies, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that 10 percent of the wolf population is killed illegally.
• At the end of 2008, about 500 wolves lived in Montana in roughly 84 packs. An estimated 1,650 wolves lived in the northern Rocky Mountain region.
