10-15 SS Interest in Wolves

A follow-up on yesterday's story in which a female wolf was killed in the state of Washington.

Washington authorities are trying to figure out who shot a female wolf knowing that that is an illegal activity in the state of Washington. That said, in Idaho it is totally legal and when it was first legalized there was a huge interest on the part of hunters in getting one of these top of the food chain predators, but now for one reason or another, not many wolves are harvested as I learned from Fish and Game's Niels Nokkentved. "The first year it was like 40,000 tags and they killed around 280 wolves. Last year hunters took 255 and trappers took 124 so that is 379 killed altogether and we sold a similar number of tags. Does that mean I can now start calling them the elusive wolf? Those are your words. (Laughter) But I don't think it would be in accurate. Let me tell you one more thing that is anecdotal, we don't have any scientific evidence of it. We know lots of people by wolf tags, just to have them, in case they see one. Most people don't actually hunt specifically for wolves. They have a wolf tag just in case they see one. Others just take pictures. And then some do both.