Is one state doing a better job than the other on the hunt?
I think it’s still too soon to say, and too soon on the quotas too. Wolves killed picked up quickly in Idaho as more elk and deer hunts opened. Now the number killed is slowing down, but wait until there is more snow on ground and the wolves can be tracked. Idaho’s hunt goes for months too. What will happen will the wolves, as they have to, come down to the winter range with their prey? They will be easier to see.
I still worry about non-hunt wolf kills by the states. The 23 wolves killed by order of Montana on the Blackfeet Reservoir still has no publicity or explanation. That is 1/4 as many as their state wolf hunt quota.
Poaching, other issues throw wrinkles in state’s wolf hunting quotas. By Michael Jamison. The Missoulian
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is past President of the Western Watersheds Project and the creator of The Wildlife News.
“Control” killings are a much greater threat to wolves than legal hunting. I don’t have a problem with landowners killing wolves that are killing their livestock on private lands, but the subsidized killing of wolves (or any other predators) on public lands is an arcane policy–a leftover from the predator eradication years.