MICHAEL CAST
Montana Standard
Two men each illegally shot a gray wolf on private property from a helicopter in the Big Hole Valley near Wisdom in March.
The incident comes at a time when the state is grappling with controversy over wolf management. Gov. Greg Gianforte made national headlines in February by trapping and killing a wolf, and the Legislature has since passed several bills designed to increase the legal killing of the predators in the state, dramatically changing an enforcement system that some wildlife experts had seen as effectively balancing competing interests.Â
Dalton Thomas Tamcke, 30, and Justin Samuel Peterson, 22, did not possess wolf tags, nor did they have landowner permission to hunt on the property, the Mark Clemow Ranch, on March 3. Hunting wolves from a helicopter is illegal as well.