The Challenges and Benefits of Wolf Hunting

The first wolf I ever saw appeared to be pure white and stood alone on a low rise. Not close, but not all that far. I dropped into a sitting position, wrapped into a hasty sling, got as steady as I could—and missed.

I’m not the only hunter who has blown such a rare opportunity. Outfitters across Alaska and Canada consistently report that the wolf is the most missed animal they hunt. Something about the sight of a wolf stirs something primitive and atavistic deep within us. We can’t help it. The sight of a wolf is usually a big surprise, the shot often a rushed Hail Mary. I wish I could say that’s the only wolf I’ve missed, but I can’t. That time, maybe I had excuses. No rangefinders back then, and I had no idea how big this animal was. I made my best guesstimate. It wasn’t good enough.

Wolves are plentiful throughout Alaska and much of Canada. Alaska’s population is estimated at 7,000 to 11,000, Canada’s at 50,000 to 60,000. Do enough hunts in the Far North and most hunters eventually get a wolf. Maybe most hunters shoot better than I do, but it never happened to me. Wolves are highly intelligent, all senses honed, and they know humans are trouble. Taking a wolf in a chance encounter usually means a difficult shot.

Hunting wolves on purpose isn’t much easier. In fact, a wolf is one of North America’s most difficult animals to hunt, but it can be done. Options include baiting or stalking on natural kills, calling and, in winter, tracking on snow machines. I’ve done it all. I haven’t yet seen a wolf come all the way in to calling, but several times they’ve answered howls, just beyond limit of vision. Think that doesn’t raise the hairs on the back of your neck?

Wolf Enigma

People have strong feelings about wolves. Some of you reading this hate them with passion. Others love them, with equal passion. I am not anti-wolf. I believe the wilderness should have wolves. However, the wolf is an apex predator, and I believe their numbers must be managed. Our little experiments to reintroduce wolves into the Yellowstone ecosystem and the Western Great Lakes have had far-reaching effects, often devastating to other native wildlife populations.

In Canada and Alaska wolves are treated as big-game animals, but can also be trapped. In the lower 48, the wolves got ahead of management. Briefly, there was some wolf hunting in the western Great Lakes region—it’s currently tied up in courts. There were also legal battles in the West, but wolves are now hunted and harvested by trapping in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. I’m not a trapper, but trapping is probably more effective than hunting for wolf management. I am a hunter. I think it’s wonderful that gray wolves are now legally hunted in those three Western states. I think of them as an elusive, interesting and magnificent big-game animal. For good or bad, the wolf reintroduction was shockingly successful, numbers multiplying far beyond all projections. And spreading. Like it or not, Pandora’s box can’t be closed; I’m confident we will see wolf hunting in more states in years to come.

In those three states, wolf hunting is currently a new opportunity, with hunters learning the pursuit. As in the Far North, some are taken by chance encounter. I’ve seen wolves in the American West, often seen their tracks and occasionally heard them howl—never when hunting was legal, though opportunities were fleeting anyway. To hunt them on purpose successfully and consistently is difficult, but some Western hunters are figuring it out. A couple of years ago, I drew a Montana goat tag, hunting with Ryan Counts. He’s one of the guys who figured it out; I was simply amazed at the success he has with winter wolf hunting. Remember, we’re barely a decade into wolf hunting in the West, and it’s a steep learning curve. Wolves have always been part of the big-game picture in Alaska and Canada. Numerous outfitters up there offer winter wolf hunts.

Of course, it’s not a 100% deal. Far from it. Having failed to take a wolf over the course of umpteen northern hunts for caribou, bear, sheep, goat, moose, you name it, the only way to cure my wolf problem seemed to be to hunt them specifically. Mike Hawkridge and I came close. Mike likes to howl them in. We were hunting in central British Columbia’s Chilcotin Mountains. The last day, we had a pack howling in a river bottom, just out of sight. I was sure a wolf would step out at any second. Then it got dark.

Opportunity Knocks

A couple years later, Trent Packham from Alberta had a table across from me at a Safari Club fundraiser. He is a hunter, outfitter, trapper, with lots of pictures of wolves. I booked a hunt with Trent for January. As luck would have it, I caught ridiculously warm week, above freezing, wolves in their winter coats suffering from heat exhaustion. There were fresh tracks every morning, howling early, then it shut down. Trent calls, howls, prowls with snow machines—and sprinkles carcasses of road-kill moose along his trapline.

I never saw a wolf, but it seemed to me he knew what he was doing. I tried again the next January. First day, I sat with a frozen moose 200 yards below me on a frozen river in subzero temperatures. I wasn’t even cold yet when three wolves trotted down the river. The first two were black, the third gray. In Alberta, wolves are hunted on a general license, no tags or bag limit. I got all three, undoubtedly making up for past misses. This is probably why I haven’t done any of our new Western wolf hunting. I neither love wolves nor hate them, but I want them to be managed, and I’m happy for you to do the managing. As I get older, I’m feeling that way about more game animals.

Come to think of it, the gray wolf, Canis lupus, whether big game, predator or pestilence, isn’t just a North American game animal. The same wolf is widely distributed throughout much of Eurasia, protected in some countries, hunted in others. In Scandinavia, moose are important economically as a food source. Last time I hunted in Sweden, there was concern over wolf depredation (sound familiar?). After decades of protection, wolf hunting has resumed in Finland, Norway and Sweden. Also in Spain, where wolves were nonexistent for nearly a century.

Eastern Europe and northern Asia, with less human population, is still wolf country. Wolves are still hated and feared. They occasionally kill and eat livestock. If I were to pick one place in the world as the best place to hunt a wolf, it must be the tiny country of Macedonia, north of Greece. Only 26,000 square miles of, sheep country, with about 2,500 wolves that love mutton. There they hunt by drives and over bait, and know how to hunt wolves. I took a big wolf there in three days.

Far Off Places

I have also seen wolves on several hunts in central Asia and took a big wolf in Mongolia sort of as a chance encounter. At that time, the Mongolians were especially angry at wolves because they had killed and eaten a pregnant woman walking home at dusk. Generally speaking, there is no real danger to wolf hunting: They know humans are dangerous. Despite all the legends, we are usually not on their menu. However, don’t give them an opportunity in the middle of nowhere.

Years later, in Armenia, we were stalking a bear when we came onto smoking-hot wolf tracks in the snow headed in our same direction. We followed them across one little canyon, down another, up to a rimrocked ridge between. Don’t know how many were in the pack, but we gained the top with the last three just topping out, not 60 yards. Closest I’ve ever been to a big, bad wolf. Yeah, I thought about it. Thought hard, but I wasn’t wolf hunting, and a bear may have been right around the corner. I watched them walk over the next ridge, the last one seeming to look at me with yellow eyes straight out of a Dracula movie.

I didn’t need that wolf and wasn’t hunting a wolf. I relaxed and put down the rifle. Naturally, the bear was long gone, certainly because of the wolves. I’ve replayed that scene many times. Same answer: Wherever they occur, wolves must be managed. It’s your turn to manage them.

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