This was expected, and it isn’t really the news.
Story in the Casper Star Tribune. Montana approves wolf hunting season. By Eve Byron. Lee News Service
The news is that Montana rejected things like trapping wolves (a grave danger to grizzly bears and dogs) and the use of artificial lures, baits, scents, electronic calls, aerial hunting, and night vision hunting. Moreover, the wolf hunting season does not go on for an extended period of time. Idaho’s proposed season goes on through the winter and will maximize the disruption of wolf packs and replacement of the wolves that packs loose due to the hunt.
Ed Bang’s statement, however, is as usual, superficial but popular crap public relations that “It’s time. It’s past time, and the sooner we just start treating wolves like any other animal — mountain lions, black bears, deer or elk — the better it will be for everyone, including the wolves.”
Each of the animals he names is different and in terms of hunting they are not treated the same. Moreover, there are far fewer wolves in Montana than cougar and bears.
Montana knows that they are the state that could most easily slip to an insufficient number of breeding pairs of wolves, and I think a hunt is premature on a statewide basis, so if they misjudge, emergency relisting of the wolf will quickly be on the agenda.
I think Idaho and Wyoming are going to be the real problem states when it comes to wolf killing.