Viewpoint: Montana legislators vote in favor of killing puppies

Lizzy Pennock

In its strongest bid yet to lose management authority for wolves—and to never regain management authority for grizzlies—the Montana Senate voted to pass House Bill (HB) 258 on March 31st.

The bill will return to the House for a second vote with the Senate’s amendments, but is ultimately expected to pass the House again and land on the Governor’s desk. Passage of HB 258 means that all but two Republican legislators voted yes on killing wolf puppies and their nursing mothers as well as pregnant wolves.

HB 258 would extend the wolf hunting season by three months, ending at the same time as spring black bear hunting season on June 15th instead of its current end date of March 15th. If the Governor signs HB 258 into law, Montana’s wolf killing season will be nine months long, but more significantly, it will extend into wolves’ reproductive season.

This means that hunters could legally kill puppies, as we have seen in Idaho after the state adopted a similar hunting season. And even if someone does not intend to kill puppies, puppies will be orphaned when their mothers are killed, or they may die inside of their mother’s womb days before they would otherwise take their first breath.

Even Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (FWP) testified against this bill. The agency cited concerns with how hunting during the reproductive season will impact iPOM, the model used to estimate the wolf population. iPOM has already faced significant controversy, as multiple independent scientists have explained that the model overestimates the wolf population (see also here), and explained that the model is not good for estimating animal abundance on the landscape.

FWP explained that hunting during the reproductive season will throw the (already questionable) estimate into disarray. We could wipe out the wolf population before we even know what happened.

This is where we can expect the federal government to step in. Whatever comfort Montana’s anti-wolf politicians get from knowing that the current administration is unlikely to relist wolves, that comfort could quickly vanish.

The federal government warned in its decision to delist Montana wolves in 2011 that wolves could be relisted at any time if a change in state law or management objectives would significantly increase the threat to the wolf population.

HB 258 will, without a doubt, significantly increase the threat to the wolf population. First, it mandates a hunting season that will undermine FWP’s population estimate. FWP cannot reliably say it is managing a population that, by its own admission, it cannot even estimate. Second, killing wolf puppies and nursing or pregnant mothers is cruel and unconscionable.

And HB 258 and bills like it do not just impact wolf management—how the state manages wolves is a telling glimpse into how it will manage grizzlies. In fact, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service pointed to the state’s anti-wolf laws when it recently denied Governor Gianforte’s 2021 petition to delist grizzly bears and transfer their management to the state.

This shows that wolf killing laws like HB 258 that passed in previous sessions were so deplorable that they helped keep grizzly bears under the protection of the federal government, and could easily land wolves back there as well.

If the Governor wishes to gain management authority for grizzly bears, and keep management authority for wolves, the clear choice here is to veto HB 258.

Lizzy Pennock is the Montana-based carnivore coexistence attorney for WildEarth Guardians, a non-profit conservation group committed to protecting and restoring the wildlife, wild places, wild rivers, and health of the American West.