Wolf Management in Adams County & the West
Are there wolves in Adams County? Yes. Does anyone know exactly how many wolves there are in Adams County? No. Nor do they know for sure where they are located on any given day. The Idaho State Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) deploys around 800 trail cameras during summers that are located throughout the state, but they do not have enough labor to be constantly out in the field, so their count is based on those statewide game cameras. They found that monitoring the wolf population by fitting them with radio collars, which they did in the beginning, was not cost effective. Fish and Game wildlife specialists can also estimate how many wolves are in a certain location by looking at harvest statistics and the number of documented kills of livestock animals by wolves.
On January 4, 1979, the US Fish and Wildlife Service listed Gray Wolves (Canus lupus) as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The Gray Wolf was eliminated from the Western US between 1880 and 1935. By the 1960’s, wolves were only present in Canada and Alaska. In the 1940’s, the few wolves found in Idaho had probably migrated from Canada.
In Idaho, wolf hunting seasons were initiated in 2009, following their delisting, but hunting was temporarily halted when they were relisted in 2010, and hunting resumed when they were delisted again in 2011.
Wolves may be hunted year-round on both private and public lands. Trapping of wolves is also allowed from September 10th through March 31st.
Since their delisting, Gray Wolves have been managed by the IDFG rather than the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
According to the 2023-2028 IDFG Gray Wolf Management Plan, right now, there are too many wolves in the state. An introduction to the plan states that, “The Idaho wolf population is over the carrying capacity of not just Idaho but of the entire Northern Rocky Mountain capacity in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, and Washington combined.”
There are currently over 1,200 wolves in the state and IDFG officials say that a number of around 500 would be a sustainable, manageable population and they hope to achieve this goal by 2028.
Elk are the main prey of wolves in Idaho, and IDFG has identified wolf predation as a primary factor preventing recovery of several elk zones that are below their objective numbers. In these areas, IDFG has implemented predation plans which sometimes includes wolf removal to allow elk populations to rebound.
Roger Phillips, IDFG Public Information Supervisor, said that in some cases, they have had to hire a third party to shoot wolves from helicopters, especially in the Lolo area where the elk population declined drastically from its peak of about 16,000 elk 25 years ago to fewer than 1,000 elk in recent years. Fish and game biologists estimated there were 2,000 elk in that area when it was last surveyed in 2017.
Hunting and trapping seasons have been lengthened and third-party hunters have been given money by the Idaho Wolf Control Board to reimburse these third-party hunters for their expenses.
One such third party group of hunters and trappers is the Foundation for Wildlife Management (F4WM). It costs $40 to become a member of this non-profit group that is striving to keep the wolf population low enough to keep a healthy deer and elk population.
Justin Webb, their Executive Director, said that since 2012, his organization has spent two and a quarter million dollars saving 300,000 elk, moose, deer, and other livestock by removing 2,394 wolves to date. Sixty-five percent of those funds came from volunteer chapter fundraising banquets. He said F4WM had been awarded more than $600,000 through Commission Community Challenge Grant funds.
They have also received over $200,000 from the Idaho Wolf Depredation Control Board in each of the last three years. In exchange, they must spend a matching amount of money on keeping the wolf population low. Their members are reimbursed for the costs associated with the hunting of wolves. They turn their receipts in for those costs and must show proof of a kill to be reimbursed.
Phillips said that statewide there were 235 wolves trapped and 227 wolves killed by hunting in the year 2019. In 2020, there were a total of 411 wolves killed by these methods, in 2021, 412 wolves killed; in 2022, 391 wolves were killed, and in 2023, 391 wolves were killed this way. These figures do not include wolves who died by other means.
In the year 2018, the State of Idaho Compensation Program paid out $123,498 to livestock producers for verifiable losses. In 2019, they paid out $90,000, in 2020, $98,122, in 2021, $97,668.50, and in 2022, $94,060.36. The compensation program has paid a total of $681.029.50 since 2014. These losses included cows, bulls, sheep, dogs, horses, and llamas.
(Years 2014 – 2019 include confirmed and probable kills verified by USDA Wildlife Services. *Years 2020 – 2022 are only for confirmed kills due to USFWS funding requirements.)
Individuals who plan to trap wolves must first attend a mandatory wolf trapping course and possess a trapping license. Traps must be checked every 72 hours. All trappers are required to take the skulls and pelts of wolves they have trapped to IDFG within ten days. The pelts are returned to the trapper who may then sell them.
When asked how much is typically paid for a wolf pelt, a local trapper said that over the past five years payment for pelts has ranged from $300 to $500 dollars, depending on the color and quality of the pelt. IDFG said that trapping is usually more effective than hunting.
The manager of the OX Ranch in Bear said that while they did not know how many of their newborn calves may have been killed by wolves, they hired a trapper, who last year trapped five wolves on their property.
In April of this year, ten non-profit groups filed a lawsuit against the US Wildlife Service and the BLM in Montana and Idaho to get the wolves relisted on the Endangered Species List. These groups feel that the aggressive wolf hunting policies of both states threaten Montana’s and Idaho’s Gray Wolf populations.
