Montana Fish & Wildlife Commission Approves Record High Wolf Kill Quota

"Extracting a sustainable answer from the wolf debate requires holistic thinking. Specifically: (1) Wolf restoration, (2) people, and (3) their livelihoods MUST be given equal weight.

NOTE: this article was originally published to ProjectCoyote.org on August 22, 2025.

Media Contacts are:

• Chris Smith, WildEarth Guardians, 505-395-6177, csmith@wildearthguardians.org
• Nadia Steinzor, Project Coyote, 845-417-6505, nsteinzor@projectcoyote.org

HELENA, Mont. — Today, 458 wolves in the state of Montana received a death sentence from the Montana Fish & Wildlife Commission. 458 is the quota of wolves to be hunted and trapped during the 2025-2026 season—the highest quota the state has set since wolves in the Northern Rockies lost Endangered Species Act protections in 2011. The quota of 458 applies statewide with the exception of carve-outs for the region adjacent to Yellowstone National Park. Montana Fish, Wildlife, & Parks (FWP) data (page 44) indicates that a hunting and trapping quota of 450 could drop the population to below sustainable levels within one year; FWP defines a ‘sustainable level to be over 450 wolves, or enough wolves to maintain 15 breeding pairs. 

“The regulations approved today defy science and ethics–they greenlight a season of unrelenting wolf extermination,” said Lizzy Pennock, carnivore coexistence attorney for WildEarth Guardians. “As Montana sentences a record number of wolves to be slaughtered this year, it is clearer than ever that the state will drive these keystone predators to extinction unless they are federally protected. We are considering all avenues to protect wolves.”

“Today’s cruel, senseless wolf-killing vote proves that Montana is stuck in the distant past, when extermination rather than sound management was the goal,” said Nadia Steinzor, carnivore conservation director at Project Coyote. “Montana’s wildlife agency is supposed to protect natural resources for the benefit of all–but its own Commission just did the opposite by limiting public participation and pushing through an ecologically devastating proposal.”

Montana is already under fire in court for its record of mismanaging the state’s wolf population. Earlier this month, a federal district court pointed to the inadequacies of Montana’s wolf management as a key part of its ruling that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it determined that gray wolves in the Western U.S.—including wolves in Montana—do not warrant federal protections.  The ruling detailed “serious concerns” about Montana’s wolf population estimate model, iPOM, which experts say overestimates the wolf population (see here and here) and described “negative public attitudes” which are “undisputedly expressed in the legislative body governing Montana.”

In addition to the total kill quota of 458, the Commission also approved increased killcounts for each hunter and trapper. This season, a single hunter is permitted to kill 15 wolves and a single trapper can also kill 15 wolves, meaning that a single person could kill 30 total wolves this season. Fortunately, the Commission voted down proposals to extend the wolf hunting season that would have allowed killing even during pup rearing season. 

The statewide quota applies to all of Montana with the exception of Region 3, adjacent to Yellowstone National Park, which limits wolf hunting and trapping to 60 animals, with Wildlife Management Units 313 and 316 on the border of the Park each limited to three wolves. The regulations keep in place limitations on wolf trapping in grizzly bear habitat secured by WildEarth Guardians and the Flathead-Lolo-Bitterroot Citizen Task Force in a 2024 legal settlement.

The Commission also approved an additional 100 wolves to be killed as “controlled removals,” which includes killing by USDA’s Wildlife Services at the behest of livestock producers and killing by private citizens who determine wolves are a “potential threat” to livestock, dogs, or people. Accounting for this approval, the total number of wolves the Commission approved to be killed this season in Montana is 558.  

Under the recent federal court order, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service must re-analyze whether Western gray wolves require Endangered Species Act protections. Even as it does so, WildEarth Guardians, Project Coyote, Footloose Montana, and the Gallatin Wildlife Association are in the midst of a lawsuit against Montana in state court which the groups filed in 2022. That lawsuit challenges the ongoing regulations and legislation targeting wolves as a violation of several state laws and the state constitution.