Wolf Trapping Season in Montana Starts in 18 Days. This Lawsuit is Trying to Stop It
In an effort to prevent this mass slaughter of around 40 percent of the wolf population, conservation groups have filed an urgent lawsuit.
In just eighteen days, hunters across Montana will be authorized to hunt and trap 456 wolves. Starting on November 28, the animals will be shot at night on private lands with the aid of night-vision goggles, killed by strangulation neck snares, captured in steel leghold traps, and chased down with radio-collared dogs.
In an effort to prevent this mass slaughter of around 40 percent of the wolf population, Conservation groups WildEarth Guardians and Project Coyote filed a lawsuit on October 27 in Montana State Court, claiming that the state’s extreme anti-wolf hunting and trapping policies violate the law and the state constitution.
“Montana’s politically-motivated wolf slaughter is illegal and completely unmoored from scientifically sound wildlife management,” said Lizzy Pennock, the Montana-based carnivore coexistence advocate at WildEarth Guardians. “Trophy hunting for wolves does not put food on anyone’s table, make elk populations healthier, or protect livestock. Montana’s pile of wolf carcasses stacks higher every day, and we are done waiting for somebody else to act.”
In addition, the lawsuit, asserts that by allowing wolf slaughter on the boundaries of federal lands, the state is overstepping its management authority.
Montana’s wolves were stripped of their federal protections under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 2011 and have since been managed by the state. Yearly regulations and killing quotas set by Montana are based on a wolf plan created in 2002, even with the accelerated development of conservation science and carnivore ecology over the past two decades. Despite the requirement that the plan should have beem reviewed and potentially updated every five years, the state has not revised the plan, nor has it engaged in a formal review, according to WildEarth Guardians.
“While the rest of the world is trying to reverse our current course causing the mass extinction of life, Montana seems hellbent on flaming the proverbial fires,” said Michelle Lute, PhD in wolf conservation and carnivore conservation director for Project Coyote. “Science and Indigenous knowledge have already taught us that we slaughter wolves to our own detriment. Wolves are apex predators with outsized benefits across our communities.
The lawsuit comes in the middle of Montana’s 2022/23 wolf hunting season, with wolf trapping season, where around 50 percent of the killing occurs, set to start on November 28. This year, each hunter will be licenced to kill up to 20 wolves each until 456 wolves have been wiped out across the state.
Aggressive, anti-carnivore legislation engineered to decimate wolf populations by any means necessary went into force in 2021. Under these new laws, hunting seasons across multiple states were expanded and restrictions on killing methods were practically eliminated. The regulations were so aggressive that even many pro-hunters voiced concerns. While hundreds of wolves have been killed in the past decade during hunting and trapping seasons, since 2021, Montana has drastically ramped up its effort to decimate the wolf population.
“By regulating prey behavior to prevent overbrowsing, they are ecosystems guardians and increase the diversity and abundance of myriad species,” said Lute. “With this lawsuit, we seek not only to save wolves but to save ourselves and our broadly-defined family of life.”
What can be done?
The situation is dire, but it’s not too late. Wolves, for the most part, are living on public lands (land that is owned by everyone in the country) which means that you have a say no matter what state you are from. “You really have to be vocal to the federal and state governments by flooding them with letters they don’t want to see,” says wolf advocate and filmmaker, Jamie Dutcher. “Writing letters really does help. Writing the Interior Department, writing Deb Haaland, writing Joe Biden - they need to hear what people really think, because it’s an American minority that are anti-wolf.”
Rick Lamplugh, a wolf advocate and author, says that to protect wolves, “we must transform our culture from one of wolf hatred to one of wolf respect”, but until that happens, wolves need federal protection. This is a sentiment mirrored by Dutcher: “Put wolves back on the endangered species list for the short term until they can get a better protection plan not only for land but for other predators - a Predator Protection Act - so that they’re not treated as vermin, but as proper functioning pieces of a healthy ecosystem, that’s the only way we are going got get anywhere.”
Take action:
Raise your voice for wolves by joining the #RelistWolves wolves campaign. From letter writing to social media posts, here’s a list of everything you can do to help now.
One of the most powerful way to create change is speaking directly to state representatives. For legislator and state agency contact details, visit www.livingwithwolves.com. The website also provides information on who represents who and the best way to contact them.
Listen to the Species Unite War on Wolves podcast series. We spoke with wolf experts, photographers, and conservationists to discover what we can do to stop this madness before it’s too late.
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