Montana wildlife officials are proposing changes to the upcoming 2025/2026 wolf hunting and trapping season. The Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Department is accepting public comments on the proposals through August 4 for the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission to consider during their August meeting.  

The new regulations would allow for up to 500 wolves to be killed in the hunting season, up from a quota of 334 last season. Hunters could kill up to 30 wolves each – 15 wolves with one trapping license, 15 wolves with one hunting license.  

These proposals glorify killing animals for fun, and are unethical and unscientific. There’s no reason to kill one wolf, let alone 500.  

Submit your comment on MT’s proposal for the 2025/2026 wolf hunting and trapping season by August 4 under the “Fall 2025–Winter 2026 Furbearer and Wolf Trapping and Hunting Seasons and Quotas” tab. 

Find items for Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission to consider below. 

Talking Points  

There is no scientific or ethical reason to kill wolves. This is killing for fun. 

• Wolves do not pose a significant threat to human safety. A 2021 study found that the risk of a wolf attack on a human in North America is so low it can’t be calculated. 

• Wolves do not decimate prey populations – in fact, they can improve herd health by selectively preying upon sick, weak, and injured individuals. 

• State-sanctioned wolf hunts do not decrease livestock attacks. Wolf hunting and trapping seasons target every wolf on the landscape, not wolves who spend more time near livestock. Hunting seasons cause family groups to fragment, which leads to an increase in consumption of easier prey (livestock). 

• Wolf hunts do not improve tolerance for wolves. Studies have shown that “blood doesn’t buy goodwill”, which means that allowing people to kill wolves won’t improve their overall attitude towards wolves. In fact, legal hunting can result in increased poaching. 

Rules for managing wolves should be science-based 

• Integrated Patch Occupancy Model – Beyond not being peer-reviewed, the model used to estimate the statewide wolf population (IPOM or the Integrated Patch Occupancy Model) uses data exclusively from the hunting community.   

Economics of Wolf Watching in Montana 

• Wolf watchers bring $82 million to communities in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, many of which are in Montana. In Park County alone, tourism supports 3,270 Montana jobs. 

Wolf Management Units (WMUs)  

• Re-establish the quota of 1 wolf in WMUs 313 and 316 (the wolf quota should be zero, but the Montana legislature made it illegal to establish a quota of zero in a WMU) 

Trapping and snaring 

• Traps and snares are inhumane and inherently nonselective. They injure and kill countless non-target animals annually, including endangered and threatened species like grizzly bears and Canada lynx, and even threaten family pets.  

• The trapping and snaring of wolves directly lead to more livestock attacks by eradicating wolf family groups. Wolf families fragment and individual wolves may turn to easier prey like domesticated livestock. 

• Trapping should be ended on our public lands. 

• Snaring is a primitive, archaic, and torturous method of killing animals. 

• Snaring and trapping fail to pass the rule of Fair Chase. 

• Snaring and trapping damages Montana’s public image; it sends a clear signal to potential tourists that the state does not respect wildlife. 

• Snaring will further degrade the face of hunting. 

Wolves Can Save Montana Wildlife from a 100% Fatal Disease.  

• Montana should give more significant consideration to the “value” of wolves. We know that every wolf is essential and as unique, sentient creatures, wolves have value in and of themselves. For Montana, however, wolves have a different kind of value and a lot to offer to the state. We’re talking about chronic wasting disease (CWD), an ultra-lethal degenerative neurological illness similar to mad cow disease infecting elk, deer, and moose across the American landscape, including multiple regions of Montana. 

• Currently, no known vaccine exists, and infection is on the rise in Montana. Thus far, their current control strategy: relying on hunting by humans to lower deer/elk numbers and subsequently CWD prevalence, has not yielded demonstrable effects. Predation by wolves, however, could have potent effects on disease prevalence. Human hunters only remove sick deer randomly; wolves actively seek out the infirmed. 

• Because wolves are not susceptible to the disease and can safely consume prey infected with CWD, they effectively remove the infectious agents from the environment, reducing transmission to healthy deer, elk, etc. 

• Even former Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Commissioner Gary Wolfe said halting recreational hunting of large predators like wolves in areas with emerging CWD outbreaks could curb the disease. 

We can’t let wolves in Montana be subjected to increased cruelty and brutality. There’s no place for trophy hunting in the 21st century.