BILLINGS, Mont. -- Wolf hunting restrictions in portions of Montana bordering Yellowstone National Park are protecting the park's animals from a repeat of a previous hunt when almost half the members of a well-known pack were killed, federal and state officials recently said.
Yellowstone wolf biologist Doug Smith said Montana's 2011-12 wolf season so far has turned out better for the park than an inaugural hunt in 2009.
That year hunters killed four of the 10 wolves in Yellowstone's Cottonwood pack, the subject of years of scientific research and a popular draw for wolf watchers visiting the park from across the country.
The killings sparked an outcry from wildlife advocates and prompted Montana to adjust its hunting regulations to prevent a recurrence.
Smith said four wolves shot outside the park's northern boundary this season were not from the same pack as in 2009. Also, at least two of those animals did not live exclusively inside the park.
By contrast, the Cottonwood pack was composed of "park wolves" that spent 98 percent of their time inside Yellowstone, only to be shot when they briefly wandered across the Montana border as the hunting season began.
"Distinguishing why we consider this is a success is very important," Smith said. "We only had knowledge of two that got shot (this season) and they were on their way out of the park. We can't claim that was a park pack."
Yellowstone administrators last year asked Montana officials to impose hunting restrictions in a second area, to the northwest of the park, but those were not enacted by the state. Smith said he did not know of any park wolves among the 11 reported killed in that area so far this season.
Hunting along much of the park's northern border has been closed since October after the four wolves were killed, exceeding the area's three-animal quota. Twelve wolves were killed in roughly the same area of the Gallatin National Forest during an early-season hunt in 2009.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim said this season's lower quota along the border was designed in part to refocus hunting efforts elsewhere, in hopes of curbing livestock and big game attacks by wolves in other parts of the state.
