Update on Wolf Hunt

 Idaho's first wolf hunts began September 1 with few hunters afield and reports of three wolves taken.

Wolf hunters are required to report kills within 24 hours and show the skull and pelt to Idaho Fish and Game authorities within five days.

Deputy Director Jim Unsworth noted that the successful hunters followed the rules and that the system for reporting harvest worked smoothly. Idaho began selling wolf hunting tags for the first time August 24 but no glitches in the licensing system were reported despite a one-week volume of more than 11,200 tags sold. It does indeed seem odd that with that number of tags sold the results have been extremely modest as Fish and Game wolf specialist Ed Mitchell points out with tongue in cheek: “We’ve had a massacre of 3 in the first little bit and we haven’t had a report since.”

So far, two wolf harvest reports have come from the Lolo wolf hunting zone and one from the Sawtooth zone. These are the only zones of the 12 Idaho wolf zones to open September 1 and are the zones where the impact of wolves on elk herds are documented to be particularly severe.

Hunters may encounter wolves with radio collars. They may shoot wolves with collars but are required to return the collars when they check in their wolves with Fish and Game. Hunters are asked not to cut or otherwise damage the expensive collars which can be reused to monitor wolves for management purposes.