Montana wolf pack map

The story on howlboxes had the latest map [link now dead] of the location of Montana wolf packs.

The Montana wolf population has been improving rapidly (my view) the last several years, with lots of areas with gaps filling in, but Idaho plans to decimate the wolf population in the upper Clearwater River area along the Idaho/Montana border could have a large effect on Montana wolf packs because many of the packs cross back and forth over the state line or are derived from Idaho wolf packs. Given a big wolf reduction effort in Idaho’s upper Clearwater, the Montana wolves would continually migrate back into the killing zone in Idaho.

Audio device uses howls to keep track of wolves

Audio device uses howls to keep track of wolves. By John Cramer of the Missoulian

A lot of people don’t like radio collars on wolves. These “howlboxes” could eliminate much of the incentive to collar them. It ought to make photographers happy and elminate the impact a collar has on wolf behavior.

On the other hand, they might be able to find every wolf pack making Wildlife Services’ killing activities even more lethal.

As far as counting wolves goes, in the past wolf conservationists have argued that the official count is fairly accurate and maybe a bit high. Anti-wolfers have spun stories that the actual numbers are twice, even ten times the official count. With state management this could be reversed with wolf conservationists saying the states overestimate the population so they can pretend they are conserving the wolf.

Perhaps the howlbox could make the process of counting more objective.