Montana to target 75 wolves

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is preparing to allow up to 75 wolves to be killed by hunters this fall. If the hunt isn't halted by lawsuits, we're betting less than half that number are actually killed.

Idaho is also taking steps to allow the state's first wolf hunt since reintroduction. The Gem State may set its quota as high as 250. With a burgeoning wolf population in the tough to hunt Idaho panhandle, we again expect a lot of tags to go unfilled.

The hunt, however, is an important milestone in the remarkable success story of wolf reintroduction in the Northern Rockies. The claims of some that these limited hunts could drive the animals back to extinction are laughable.

Clueless New York Times

The Newspaper of Record weighs in on the elk hunting debate at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. Instead of allowing hunters to cull the herd which has grown to about 900 animals — 300 is the sustainable population estimate — an editorial suggests using sharpshooters. The newspaper's editorial board recommends this, apparently, because most hunters kill bull elk.

Maybe the Times editorial staff doesn't understand this, but the reason most hunters kill bulls, not cows — which the newspaper correctly points out are the sex to reduce if your goal is population control — is because most western states utilize conservative management practices, which focus on hunting bull elk rather than cows. This allows states to avoid the disaster of earlier eras, when market and subsistence hunting nearly drove North American elk to extinction. These conservative management techniques led to the greatest wildlife success story in our planet's history: the 20th century restoration of North American wildlife.

Given the option, hunters will line up to hunt elk at Theodore Roosevelt, be it bulls or cows. And instead of having to spend Federal dollars hiring sharpshooters, hunters will pay the Park Service for the chance. When given the option here in Montana, many hunters prefer hunting cow elk which they know provide meat that tastes better than that of bulls.

Giant Big Hole brown

OK, so maybe we'll rethink our "We can't be bothered with any fish that won't take a dry fly" snobbery.