Media Contacts:
Lizzy Pennock, WildEarth Guardians, 406-830-8924, lpennock@wildearthguardians.org
Nadia Steinzor, Project Coyote, 845-417-6505, nsteinzor@projectcoyote.org
Clint Nagel, Gallatin Wildlife Association, clint_nagel@yahoo.com
Connie Poten, Footloose Montana, 406-274-4791, rattlefarm@gmail.com
Montana Fish & Wildlife Commission approved record high kill quota of over 550 wolves
MISSOULA, Mont. — Today, four conservation groups challenged Montana’s 2025/26 wolf regulations, which greenlit the killing of 558 wolves by hunting, trapping, and lethal control. This is the highest quota the state has set since wolves in the Northern Rockies lost Endangered Species Act protections in 2011. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) data indicates that a hunting and trapping quota of 450 could drop the population to below sustainable levels within one year; FWP defines a ‘sustainable level’ to be over 450 wolves, or enough wolves to maintain 15 breeding pairs.
“Montana’s reckless and unscientific wolf eradication program must stop,” said Lizzy Pennock, carnivore coexistence attorney at WildEarth Guardians. “Every year, the public comes out en masse to protest the unethical wolf regulations, but the Commission continues to ignore most Montanans in favor of minority, fringe special interest groups hell bent on killing wolves. This is not how the state should be managing wildlife.”
The groups asked the Montana First Judicial District Court to void this year’s regulations and send them back to the Commission so it can adopt policies that safeguard the wolf population. Until such policies are in place, the lawsuit requests that the wolf hunting and trapping season be stopped altogether.
The lawsuit alleges that Montana violated plaintiffs’ constitutional rights to a clean and healthful environment through its legislative and regulatory campaign to reduce the gray wolf population to below-sustainable levels as quickly as possible. The Montana constitution obligates the state and its agencies to manage wildlife in a manner that protects the environmental life support system from degradation; and Montana’s gray wolf population is an integral piece of Montana’s native ecosystems.
“The Commission seems determined to turn back the clock to a time when wolf eradication was an official goal,” said Nadia Steinzor, Carnivore Conservation Director with Project Coyote. “Since the Fish & Wildlife Commission has chosen to ignore public opinion and science, we are compelled to turn to the courts to save Montana’s wolves from rampant killing.”
Montana is already under fire in federal court for its record of mismanaging the state’s wolf population. In August, a federal district court pointed to the inadequacies of Montana’s wolf management as a key part of its ruling that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it determined that gray wolves in the Western U.S.—including wolves in Montana—do not warrant federal protections. The ruling characterized wolf management in Northern Rockies states as “ruinous,” and aiming to “reduce [wolves] to the minimum number of animals required to avoid complete extirpation.”
“Setting arbitrarily high quotas and removing trap setbacks to kill more wolves ignores science and ethics to satisfy a few,” said Connie Poten, President of Footloose Montana. “Poaching isn’t even considered, yet a study revealed that 50% more wolves are poached than legally killed during hunting season. This expanded quota, with bounty incentives, is in fact eradication, not wildlife management.”
The Commission approved 458 wolves to be killed by hunting and trapping during the 2025/26 season, and an additional 100 wolves to be killed as “controlled removals” over the course of 2026, which includes killing by USDA’s Wildlife Services at the behest of livestock producers and killing by private citizens who perceive wolves as a “potential threat” to livestock, dogs, or people. Thus, the total number of wolves the Commission approved to be killed in Montana is 558.
“The strongest position one can find themselves in when it comes to wildlife management is to have a management decision based upon science and morality,” said Clint Nagel, President of the Gallatin Wildlife Association. “We have neither here in this case as positioned by the state of Montana.”
The four groups that challenged the regulations are WildEarth Guardians, Project Coyote, Gallatin Wildlife Association, and Footloose Montana. The groups are in the midst of a lawsuit against Montana in state court that began in 2022, when they challenged regulations and legislation targeting wolves as a violation of several state and federal laws and the state constitution. Today’s motion is part of the ongoing lawsuit.
The groups won temporary relief for wolves during the 2022/23 hunting and trapping season, significantly restricting individual quotas and killing methods. However, shortly thereafter the court declined to extend those restrictions to the entire season, reinstating the regulations approved that year.
Plaintiffs are represented in court by attorneys at Greenfire Law, P.C., Morrison Sherwood Wilson & Deola, PLLP, and Gallik & Bremer, P.C.
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