Plan to kill 550 wolves threatens soul of Montana

Montana plans to allow more than 550 wolves to be killed this season. That’s over half the state’s population. According to Fish Wildlife and Park’s own forecasting report, this level of slaughter could cause a population collapse in a few years. In Montana, where 74% of residents say wolves belong, this plan doesn’t represent us.

I grew up in Flathead County, lived in East Glacier for several years, and now I live in Missoula. Backpacking and hiking every corner of Glacier Park and the Bob Marshal Wilderness Complex led to countless wolf and grizzly encounters. The land and wildlife are a part of me. Montana is my home and whenever I find myself out of the state, I somehow find myself drawn back here, as if this land has its own gravitational pull on me. 

More and more, the Montana I love is slipping away. Along with most locals, I share a deep sadness and frustration about rising living costs, overdevelopment and privatization making our home into something unrecognizable. The plan to kill nearly half of our wolves reflects that same loss — a detachment from the wilderness that makes Montana special. Wolves are a part of what defines this state; to lose them is to lose a piece of ourselves.

Today, wolves live in just 10% of their historic range. Montana is one of the few places they still belong. The minority of people who don’t like wolves are free to call home the 93.3% of the rest of the country where wolves don’t exist. 

Wolves are rare animals that are nowhere near recovery numbers in the Northern Rockies. A federal judge in Montana recently agreed, ruling that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service failed to properly consider science when it denied Endangered Species Act protections for wolves. 

According to wildlife biologists, Montana’s legal minimum of 15 breeding pairs is far too low to maintain a healthy, resilient population. That number only prevents extinction, rather than full ecological recovery. Scientists estimate that true recovery in the Northern Rockies requires at least 4,000 wolves. Today, there are fewer than 2,700. 

Yet, our state government seems determined to turn back the clock to a shameful era of extermination. Allowing half the population to be killed betrays the deep connection Montanans share with the land and its wildlife.

Wolves inspire people across political and cultural lines. They are loyal, family-oriented animals whose presence shapes our ecosystems and our identity. 

Even my most conservative friends love wolves and a recent study affirms this. 75% of self-identified conservatives and 79% of ranchers and farmers in rural areas of states with wolf populations, like Montana, support Endangered Species Act protections for wolves. Yet, a few loud voices try to create a false division among Montanans. 

Efforts to eliminate wolves attempt to sanitize and tame Montana, turning our state into a manicured and domesticated shadow of its wild self. We can’t allow that to happen. Because when the howl of the wolf disappears, so too does the soul of Montana.

Josh Schott is the Rocky Mountain Coordinator for Team Wolf. He is from Flathead County.