The Wyoming Game and Fish Department says that it’s wolf management plan would reduce wolves from around 350 down to about 200 in the first year.
Some of this would be done by hunting.
State Game Warden Brian Nesbit says the state needs to maintain ten breeding pairs and 100 wolves outside of Yellowstone National Park and he says the state will take a conservative approach in reducing the population to avoid risking wolves getting put back on the endangered species list.
Nesbit says wolf hunting will be strictly monitored to maintain the necessary population.
“We would forsee managing wolves fairly similar to how we manage Mountain Lions and Black Bears in that there would be 12 hunt areas and in those hunt areas there would be designated quotas.”
Nesbit is not concerned that too many wolves will be killed outside of the protected areas, because he says few wolves wander beyond those borders.
“We have taken those impacts from wolves that would most likely be taken in the predator area, we have used that in our calculation to ensure that we don’t exceed the minimum thresholds that we’ve committed to in the points of agreement with the service recovery goals and the terms of agreement between the governor and the service".
The Game and Fish Commission will finalize management regulations in April.
