The Montana Senate Fish and Game Committee advanced a pair of bills late Thursday evening that would allow private payments to wolf trappers and hunters as well as directing Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks to consider more aggressive means of taking the animals.
Sen. Bob Brown, R-Thompson Falls, brought Senate Bill 267 and Senate Bill 314 to a marathon committee meeting that included multiple bills on wolves, grizzly bears and management of game fish.
SB 267 would allow private reimbursement for costs incurred for hunting or trapping wolves. A similar bill in the 2019 session was voted down as opponents criticized the measure as effectively putting a bounty on the animals.
Montana Senate committee advances more wolf bills helenair.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from helenair.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Wolf trappers in Montana would be allowed to use snares under a bill that drew significant debate Tuesday.
The House Fish, Wildlife and Parks Committee held a lengthy hearing on House Bill 224 from Rep. Paul Fielder, R-Thompson Falls. The bill would mandate that licensed trappers in Montana be allowed to use snares for wolves. Currently, trappers are only allowed to use foothold traps to capture wolves, although snares may be legally used for other species.
âPresently Montana allows snares as a wildlife management tool for the harvest and taking of furbearers, predators and nongame wildlife, but not wolves,â Fielder told the committee. â⦠Allowing snaring of wolves by licensed trappers will give wildlife managers another tool to reduce wolf numbers, especially in areas where ungulate numbers are stressed by wolves.
BILLINGS, Mont. After scattering like wildfire in a gust of wind, 49 bighorn sheep have settled in to their new home in the Little Belt Mountains. “One ewe went 24 miles north on the day of the release, turned around and came back,” said Jay Kolbe, wildlife biologist for the Montana Department of Fish, […]
BRETT FRENCH
After scattering like wildfire in a gust of wind, 49 bighorn sheep have settled in to their new home in the Little Belt Mountains.
âOne ewe went 24 miles north on the day of the release, turned around and came back,â said Jay Kolbe, wildlife biologist for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks in White Sulphur Springs.
Kolbe was able to see the large movement because the animals are wearing GPS collars that reveal their location twice a day for as long as five years. One of the five rams trapped and relocated traveled about 10 miles east to the Judith Gap area after release before traveling back to the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest.