Josh Jurek has wolves on his mind.

So this year, when Jurek was itching to ply his hobby of making snow sculptures, it was wolves that emerged from the snow piles in his yard.

“I want to bring awareness of this whole wolf issue,” he says.

A member of Montana Trapping Association, Jurek says he is “half happy, half unhappy” that we have wolves in Montana. He is well aware of the importance of wolves as part of the ecosystem, but feels that too many of them are here now and if they aren’t removed, “our deer and elk numbers will be decimated to zero.” He is actively attending meetings trying to get regulations about wolf trapping or hunting relaxed to make it easier to take more wolves.

Jurek has long enjoyed making snow sculptures, an activity he has won prizes for in the past when he lived in Michigan.

“I just stack up a huge pile of snow and start carving and shaping, and then color it with food color,” he says, making it sound easy as baking a cake. The result might not be as tasty, but it is certainly beautiful.