The Idaho Fish and Game Commission could consider extending the wolf hunting season in some parts of the state when it meets this week in Coeur d’Alene.
The commission will be given an update on the ongoing season, which might include a proposal designed to increase wolf harvest in some areas, but no changes on quotas are proposed.
Last summer, the commission set a statewide wolf harvest limit of 220 wolves, and divided the state into 12 wolf hunting zones, each with its own harvest limit. Through Friday, hunters in Idaho had killed 100 wolves.
In most parts of the state, the wolf hunting season will end Dec. 31. But in the Lolo and Sawtooth wolf hunting zones, where biologists have said wolves are preventing elk herds from reaching management goals, the season will last until the end of March.
Officials say the season could be extended beyond 2009 in some of the other units. Wolf hunting success has varied across the state. In the Lolo Zone, where the commission set a harvest limit of 27 wolves, just six have been taken. Hunters have killed 25 wolves in the Sawtooth Zone, which has a limit of 55. Just four wolves have been killed in the Selway Zone, which has a limit of 17, and only three have been killed in the Salmon Zone, where the limit is 16.
Hunting was shut down in the Upper Snake Zone on Nov. 2, when hunters reached the limit of five wolves, and in the McCall-Weiser Zone a week later, when the limit of 15 was reached.
