The hunting of all wolves in Montana Wolf Management Unit 110 which includes portions of Lincoln and Flathead Counties, in northwestern Montana, will close Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at one half-hour after sunset.

The order halting the hunt came after Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks officials received word that the pre-established harvest quota for wolves in the WMU had been met.

For more information, visit FWP’s website at fwp.mt.gov click “Montana Wolf Hunt,”or call the toll-free number at 1-800-385-7826.

And here is a related Associated Press article . . .

Montana officials are closing down wolf hunting in parts of northwestern Montana bordering Glacier National Park after hunters filled the area’s two-animal quota.

Hunting closes after sunset Wednesday in portions of Lincoln and Flathead counties west of the park.

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Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has closed wolf hunting in a district covering areas east of Kalispell and in the Swan Valley because the allotted quota was recently met.

The quota for District 130 was 12 wolves, and over the weekend the state announced that the quota had been met and the district would be closed as of sunset Monday…

The Montana wolf hunt is scheduled to continue through Dec. 31. A proposal to extend it one more month is under consideration.

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The busy season for bear management is well under way in Northwest Montana.

Over the past two weeks, Fish, Wildlife and Parks bear conflict biologists have captured and relocated eight grizzly bears from the northeast portion of the Flathead Valley, according to a news release Friday from the state wildlife agency. A ninth was captured in the Yaak.

Three of the grizzly bears were captured north of Columbia Falls; five others were captured east of Montana 206.

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Could it be webbed claws? Or maybe an ancient connection to a Labrador bloodline?

In any case, a young grizzly bear has demonstrated Olympian swimming skills on Flathead Lake, proved with GPS data from a satellite collar that was recovered Monday near the town of Swan Lake…

Mace calculated that the bear traveled 1,200 miles on land and water while she was wearing the collar from June 2010 to September 2011…

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Carolyn Sime, a pioneer in wolf management in Montana, is leaving her job with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks in order to pursue a law degree.

“After 10 years of late-night phone calls, ranch meetings and 20 years of game check stations, I’m ready to try something new,” Sime said this week. “But I leave with some really, really fond memories of the relationships we’ve made and the work toward finding common ground, having open dialogues and civil discussions.”

For more than a decade, Sime was in the epicenter of the wolf management controversy…

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Hunters will be able to shoot as many as 220 gray wolves in Montana this fall under rules adopted Thursday by state wildlife commissioners.

The hunt is scheduled to begin in early September and is expected to reduce the predator’s Montana population by about 25 percent to 425 wolves.

A wolf hunt is also planned in Idaho, where officials have not proposed statewide harvest targets or quotas.

Wolves were taken off the endangered species list in an unprecedented move by Congress this spring in Montana, Idaho and parts of Utah, Washington and Oregon.

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An ongoing grizzly bear population trend study got off to a good start this year with three bears being captured and fitted with radio collars in the North Fork Flathead drainage.

But that’s just the start of trapping efforts that will carry on for the next few months throughout the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, which stretches from the mountains of southern Alberta to the southern end of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex.

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Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are investigating the wounding of a grizzly bear near the intersection of the Red Meadow Creek Road and the North Fork Road north of Polebridge.

FWP wardens and biologists investigated the scene on June 2 and tracked the grizzly but were unable to locate it. A trap was set in the area for the bear.

Residents, hikers and other outdoor recreationists are advised to use caution in the Polebridge area until more is learned about the situation. The investigation is ongoing.

Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolves officially return to state control Thursday, when their removal from Endangered Species Act protection is published in the Federal Register.

That means Montana and Idaho hunters will be back in the business of controlling wolf populations this fall. A bipartisan rider in the 2011 federal budget bill ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reinstate its 2009 wolf delisting decision and immunized it from further court challenges.

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Montana wildlife officials moved quickly to get fall hunting plans in place after the federal government returned the gray wolf to state management on Wednesday.

“We’ll propose tentative plans to the commission on May 12,” Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim said shortly after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that wolves would no longer be protected under the Endangered Species Act. “We expect a (hunting) quota of 220, up from 186 last year, and there will be a special wolf management unit in the Bitterroots with a specific quota to address the elk depredation problems there.”

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