Response to Letter About Wolves

The writer of a letter to the editor in last week’s paper claimed the reintroduction of wolves to Montana is an effort to exterminate the deer and elk in the western part of the state.

As a result, hunters have flocked to eastern Montana where there are no wolves, and consequently, more deer and elk.

I beg to differ.

Wolves were actually reintroduced to Montana by way of Yellowstone Park. And while they did wreak havoc on the elk herds there, that’s not western Montana.

Western Montana is a straight shot west five hours down Highway 2. There are more than 100,000 people in Flathead County alone. The valleys are developed, and the mountains are thickly timbered. Public access is limited.

In Phillips County, the second largest county in the state, there are only 4,192 people, and thousands of acres of public land. That’s why hunters come here.

And they’re not just from the western part of the state. The joke for a number of years now on Frenchman Creek is that the hunters from Washington up there are beginning to complain about all the hunters from Washington.

Word gets out.

Frenchman.

The Breaks.

Seemingly endless acres of of BLM.

Eastern Montana -- Phillips County in particular -- has a reputation for exceptional hunting. And while it may not be as exceptional as it used to be, it’s still better than most other places. That’s no secret.

I moved here 16 years ago because of the hunting. An outfitter I’d worked for in Park County started taking clients to the Breaks, and after seeing photos of the deer they were harvesting, I followed suit. For ten years I hunted antelope and mule deer in Phillips and Valley counties.

I was that guy from somewhere else who came up here to hunt.

But it was for much more than simply shooting a good buck. I’d see far fewer hunters here and a lot more game than where I hunted in the mountains.

There’s still game here, although not as plentiful as years ago, but there are certainly more hunters. And there will be more, not so much because of the wolves, but simply because there are fewer places to hunt and more people every day moving to our state.

The solution might be to restrict hunting in a particular county to only residents of that county. There’s 4,192 folks up here in Phillips County that would probably be just fine with that.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]