Elinor Smith Yellowstone National Park draws millions of visitors a year, with stunning natural views and wildlife. Among the most popular sites in the park are its populations of wolves. So popular, in fact, that the animals can often get used to seeing and being near people. Nick Mott and Mike Koshmrl dug into what happens to Yellowstone wolves that leave the park now that they're no longer classified as endangered. Nick, thank you so much for being here today.
Nick Mott It's great to be here, Elinor.
Elinor Smith So let's start in Yellowstone. What populations of wolves exist in the park?
Nick Mott So, there are roughly a hundred wolves in Yellowstone, and that number is, you know, give or take a few wolves. There's wolves that die naturally. There's pups that are born and then also pass away sometimes, and there are wolves that leave the park and die from legal hunting. That one hundred number stays relatively static and it has stayed relatively static for a number of years, and all those wolves are split up into a variety of packs.
Elinor Smith So these animals are very popular among tourists. How has that popularity impacted their socialization?
Nick Mott Since 1995, when wolves were reintroduced to the region, something else really major has changed within the park. As the wolf population grew, and as populations of other species like grizzly bears and bison grew too, the population of tourists has skyrocketed inside Yellowstone National Park. And so these days, drive down, you know, through the Lamar Valley in peak tourist season, and you don't have to get any kind of key insider knowledge to see wolves. You just look for where the people are stopped on the side of the road. Park data estimates that wolf tourism in particular brings about $82 million annually to gateway communities for Yellowstone. And that all means that these wolves in these big open landscapes are very accustomed to being somewhat close to people, and they're accustomed to people being harmless, because wolves are protected inside Yellowstone National Park.
Elinor Smith Right, so friendlier wolves sounds good on paper, but we're seeing some negative impacts here in Montana. What is the new environment like for wolves post endangered species listing?
Nick Mott Yeah, so I wouldn't even call it new, because Endangered Species Act protections were removed in Montana and Idaho and parts of other Western states in 2011. So it's been quite a long time. And ever since, we've been hunting wolves here. You know, that's part of the management strategy. But Yellowstone wolves have been a very controversial subject of hunting, because those wolves are so used to people and they're also so iconic. Yellowstone National Park wolves spend about 96% of their time inside the park, park data suggests. But in that 4% of the time they spend outside of the park, they're especially vulnerable to hunters. Some hunters will wait literally near the park lines to open fire. And then there's also legal trapping seasons, and wolves are subject to trapping as well. So how to deal with these wolves that are very used to people that don't run away has been a real headache for wildlife managers for years now. But the number of Yellowstone wolves getting killed by hunters and trappers in Montana has increased pretty drastically in the last few years.
Elinor Smith Not every wolf living in the mountain west is tolerant of people. Are there healthy populations of wolves living outside the park?
Nick Mott There are only about a hundred wolves in Yellowstone. Montana as a whole, it's really tough to count wolves, but officials estimate there are about 1,100 wolves here. In Idaho, about 1,200. So, Yellowstone Park wolves are the vast minority of wolves in the region, actually. Although there are so many more wolves, they are very difficult to see. You have to get very lucky to see those wolves. That's in part because of the landscape. You know, northwest Montana and western Montana is much more timbered than southwest Montana, where there's a lot more open land. But also those wolves are extremely wary and scared of people. So they hear a human voice, they go the other way.
Elinor Smith So what does life look like moving forward for wolves in Montana? Are there likely to be any changes to hunting policy here?
Nick Mott The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission updates its hunting regulations for wolves every year, actually, so some changes do happen all the time. But there are a number of big policy changes that have happened over the last few years that are worth talking about. First is in the 2021 Montana Legislature a bill was passed that mandated the state reduce its wolf population. But it didn't say how much to reduce that wolf population. So that's been a subject of contention ever since. The Fish and Wildlife Commission has made it easier than ever to kill wolves in some ways, legalizing things like night hunting and neck snares in certain situations. And every year there's battles over where and how many wolves you can kill in the state.
Elinor Smith Okay, so this seems kind of like an ever evolving situation here, Nick. If Montanans would like to check out more of your or Mike's work, where can they find it?
Nick Mott You can find this piece on Mountain Journal or Wyofile, and if you want to hear more about wolves, you can also listen to my work here at Montana Public Radio, including my podcast The Wide Open that discusses wolves at length in one episode.
Elinor Smith Well, thank you so much for the information here today and for sitting down to walk me through it.
Nick Mott Thank you so much, Elinor.
