Are the wolves easy to hunt, or is there just an over abundance of them??? I think the later...also could be due to the wolves not being used to being hunted...but I can about guarantee they have been shot at before...I'm sure there was a lot of SSS going on before any season was inacted.....interesting to see how this all plays out....

With my experience its wolves not used to being the target and are bit careless. When we started shooting them in a new hunting area didnt take long and they were leery of calls and stayed long ways away. Sure a lot of howling all night after the pack is thinned out.

If they issued 12 tags and 9 were filled they definitely have an overabundance of wolves in the area. I hope that they issue more tags next year.

I think that this many wolves have been taken because they have never been hunted and have never had that pressure. they are smart creatures and will become a lot harder to hunt the more people start shooting at them. in the mean time i think there are enough around that they wont be hunted to extinction

There wasn't 12 tags issued, the quota was 12 wolves, there were hundreds and hundreds of tags allocated. Exactly how many of those tags were purchased I have not heard.

Just shows the amount of wolves and how they have gotten used to being the kings of the forest, not as cautious as they will be next year thats for sure.

Well first off it is apparent that hunters are shooting up the packs that work in and out of Yellowstone. The first wolf was taken just over the ridge from the headwaters of Slough Creek which is a prime movement area for those packs. Unfortunately these are NOT the wolves that are causing predation problems on livestock (one of the justifications for the season in MT) they are just the easiest pickings and could possibly be even less wary of human contact due to the throngs of wolf watchers in the Lamar Valley they have likely grown accustom to. The uproar over wolves is one I find curious having grown up in SW MT and now living in Minnesota. MN has roughly twice the number of wolves in the state alone (not including UP MI and WI) when compared to the three state region of WY, ID and MT and easily 5 times the human population and yet a fraction of the isssues in regards to wolf management and yes MN has quite a robust livestock industry including dairy, beef and lamb/sheep production. I find it ironic that 9 of the 12 permits for harvest were taken along the northern border of Yellowstone Park which has little to any livestock production and none have been harvested over by Ennis or Hamilton in which cattle predation has been an issue. Seems like a little bit of fixing a problem where there is none. BEFORE I get bashed for 'anti-hunting' re-read what I just wrote. The point of managing predators should be for effective management in areas where they are a problem NOT just to fill out some numbers to satisfy some public concern. I doubt that anyone of the nine taken have been problematic with respect to human activity. With 3,000+ wolves in Minnesota there are more than enough trophy whitetails to go around for hunters.