Judge hears arguments on limiting Montana’s wolf season
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) As wildlife advocates make a second try to limit Montana’s wolf season, a judge’s decision may come down to the unreliability of the state’s wolf population estimates.
On Friday afternoon, Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Christopher Abbott heard two hours of arguments on whether he should grant an injunction against Fish, Wildlife & Parks’ 2025 wolf season regulations while the related court case drags on.
Claiming that Montana’s current liberalized wolf regulations and quotas could potentially hurt the wolf population, four organizations - Wildearth Guardians, Project Coyote, Footloose Montana and the Gallatin Wildlife Association - are asking the judge to grant an injunction to maintain the status quo, which would keep the 2024 regulations in place.
In August, the FWP commission approved wolf regulations that would allow hunting and trapping until the population approaches 458 or the season ends. The season runs from Sept. 1 to March 15. FWP estimates statewide wolf population at 1,091 give or take a couple hundred, so if hunters and trappers do their worst, around 600 wolves could die in one season. That’s more than 50% of the population, a mortality rate far greater than the 27% that FWP’s 2024 wolf report says will cause the population to decline.
In October, the plaintiffs filed for the injunction, their second attempt to limit the wolf hunting and trapping season since the case began in 2022. Abbott denied the first petition in 2022, saying the plaintiffs hadn’t shown that new rules passed by the 2021 Legislature posed a sufficient threat to the wolf population under the Public Trust Doctrine. This time, the plaintiffs have amended their complaint to allege a violation of the Constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment.
During the hearing, Abbott said judges normally wouldn’t accept an amended complaint so far into the legal process. Plaintiffs’ attorney Jessica Blome said it may be three years in, but the discovery process hasn’t progressed far, because FWP hasn’t been forthcoming with data or documents. In addition, the Held v. Montana climate case was decided in the meantime, and its ruling reinforced the right to a clean and healthful environment, which includes Montana’s wildlife.
“We believe we are likely to succeed on the merits because, as the court explained previously, the Constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment provides that the state cannot knowingly degrade a natural resource,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Susann Bradford. “In your opinion, you explained that the Montana Supreme Court has confirmed that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention made it clear that they intended this to be both anticipatory and preventative.”
Bradford said an injunction was needed to maintain the status quo due to uncertainty about how many wolves actually exist in Montana. FWP doesn’t count wolves. Instead it uses a statistical model called “iPOM” to estimate the population, so there’s some error. For example, an estimated average of around 1,125 wolves in 2021 could be 150 wolves too many or 150 too little. So FWP has no way of knowing when the population reaches 450 wolves, Bradford said.
Abbott said there’s no precedent related to wildlife for when the right to a clean and healthful environment is violated. FWP’s wolf plan shows the 27% annual mortality that occurred between 2014 and 2021 is sustainable - the population was relatively stable - but the plaintiffs argue 50% is too much. Abbott asked where between those two percentages was the Constitutional line crossed.
Bradford argued it was up to FWP to put forth a scientifically defensible number and not manage to a minimum population.
“The goal (of 450 wolves) is a political mandate that is not scientifically defensible,” Bradford said. “Sound wildlife management always recommends a buffer and the precautionary principle so you don’t manage it so close to crisis that you’re inviting a crisis that you can’t predict.”
FWP attorney Alexander Scolavino said an injunction wasn’t necessary, because the FWP commission would stop the season if the wolf population neared 450. Quoting the 15th Century political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli - “Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past” - he added that hunters and trappers wouldn’t kill enough wolves during this season to reach the minimum, based upon the number of wolves they’ve killed in past seasons, around 300.
Scolavino argued that the plaintiffs haven’t been able to show how the addition of night-vision goggles, additional bounties and reductions in road offsets for traps would increase the number of wolves killed. He said that this season, only one wolf has been killed at night and there’s no way to tell whether night-vision goggles were used.
“The Legislature decided to reduce, not eliminate wolves,” Scolavino said. “Additionally, the commission is a public body, and it should be presumed to be in the public interest of all. The commissioners speak for their constituents and make their decisions based upon their constituents, just as the Legislature does.”
The Outdoor Heritage Coalition and Montana Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife intervened in the case on behalf of FWP and attorney Gary Leistico argued that even if sportsmen could kill more wolves than they have in previous years, it would still take two years before the population would collapse. In the meantime, FWP could reverse course, Leistico said. So an injunction wasn’t needed to stop harm from occurring this season.
Abbott harkened back to a ruling on the Constitutional right to a quality education where the judge sent a law back to the Legislature saying you can’t guarantee the right if there’s no way to measure a quality education. Similarly, how could Abbott know the right to a clean and healthful environment wasn’t violated when FWP couldn’t accurately measure the wolf population?
During final statements, Bradford said the quality education example was on point.“The purpose of (developing) iPOM was to save money and to cut back on the number of biologists in the field and the amount of on-the-ground data collection. And while they have some, that data can only verify 50% of the packs out there. So there’s a lot of uncertainty,” Bradford said.
Abbott said he would take the arguments under consideration and release a decision as soon as he could.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.