Officials in the great state of Montana just released their 2025 Annual Wolf Report and some of the figures contained inside are difficult to ignore. With previous estimates pointing to about 1,094 wolves in the Treasure State, a newly refined version of their population model has dropped that number to about 725 wolves, marking a 34 percent reduction that is now also suggesting that the number of wolves in the state has been on the decline for the last five years.
In response to their findings, FWP is now proposing to slash quotas from last year’s number of 452 to 250 for the 2026-27 hunting season.
What Actually Changed in the Model
For the last number of years, Montana FWP has relied on the integrated Patch Occupancy Model, or iPOM, to estimate wolf numbers. Using a three-pronged approach, this model combines three main pieces including an occupancy model that estimates how much of the state is occupied by wolves, a territory-size model, and a group-size (pack-size) model. The math usually operates by multiplying the predicted number of packs by average pack size, adding in a few loners and dispersers, and eventually arriving at a statewide estimate.
The original iPOM (iPOM 1.0) system leaned heavily on high-quality field observations that included “good-quality” counts usually from repeated observations and/or radio-collared canines and leaned towards larger pack sizes.
However, as time went on, biologists began to notice that more moderate-quality observations like hunter reports, single sightings, and track surveys were consistently showing smaller average pack sizes than the good-quality data, and that gap seemed to be growing. Over the past few years, that moderate-quality data eventually became a larger share of the dataset, and leaving it out was starting to look like a systemic upward bias.
Now with an updated 2.0 model that is incorporating both the good- and moderate-quality data from 2007-2025, the average pack size is being pulled downward, hence lowering the overall population estimate. The change is being described by FWP as a fine-tuning of sorts, driven by additional years of Montana-specific data, rather than a sudden collapse in the wolf population itself.
Montana FWP
“It’s a refinement of our modeling process,” said Quentin Kujala, FWP’s chief of conservation policy.
For the time being, the agency has said that they are presenting both estimates while the updated 2.0 model makes its way through the peer review process.
If there’s one thing both sides of the wolf debate can agree on, it’s that nobody wants to manage animals based on bad numbers. Beyond that, the consensus mostly evaporates.
Anti-hunting groups maintain that the newly-proposed 250-wolf quota is still too aggressive, all while conveniently ignoring the fact that quotas are traditionally never even close to being filled anyways. Last year’s harvest numbers, for example, were the lowest on record since 2016.
Montana FWP
As for hunters and trappers, the new model is doing nothing but raising legitimate questions about just how things changed so drastically. Field reports in some areas just don’t seem to match the picture of a steadily declining population, leaving more than a few of us wondering how a coding refinement and the inclusion of moderate-quality sightings produced such staggering results.
Either way, if the data ends up being the gold standard, a harvest of 250 wolves (assuming the quota gets filled) would still leave the population well above the state’s minimum threshold of 450 wolves, which is the number tied to maintaining 15 breeding pairs under the current management plan.
“We get a bad rap all the time, people on my side,” Chris Morgan, president of the Montana Trappers Association said. “We just want them managed appropriately. And maybe that’s killing wolves and maybe that’s not. But having the data to be able to do that is key.”
In short, it would seem that both camps are truly after better information. They just seem to disagree on what that information is currently telling them to do.
Public comment closes August 12th.
