CHAnER 4: ENVlKONMENTAi. ( ONSEQJiENCES 



Under Alternative 4 (Minimum WolO, management strategies call for limiting the wolf population at or 

 near Montana's share of the recovery goal. Aggressive management is assumed to reduce the historic 

 livestock depredation rate by 75%. 



Under Alternative 5 (Contingency), FWP could only implement some of the liberal management tools 

 because the gray wolf would still be listed. Those tools are assumed to reduce livestock depredation rates 

 by 25% and in direct proportion to the 25% reduction in the growth rate of the wolf population. 



Big Game Hunting. There is a link between big game populations, the number of hunters and hunter 

 days, and the overall levels of hunter expenditures in the state. However, the relationship between a 

 recovered wolf population, big game populations, and Montana's economy is not clear-cut. Many things 

 influence hunter participation, including general economic conditions, weather, demographic changes, 

 and changes in hunting regulations. For example, between 1996 and 2000, the number of Montana 

 residents purchasing elk hunting licenses declined by 21%, at a time when big game populations were 

 generally increasing. 



Hunter numbers, hunter days, and antlerless opportunity have changed in FWP regions and individual 

 hunting districts where wolves were present and where wolves were not present. So far, the presence of 

 wolves appears to play a relatively minor role among the many factors that affect big game populations, 

 hunting activity, and the economy. It is difficult to isolate potential wolf impacts from the other factors. 

 This is particularly true at the statewide level where differences between hunting districts or regions can 

 be balanced by hunters shifting to other areas with better opportunity. 



Therefore, across all alternatives, the economic impacts to big game hunting were estimated based on the 

 actual observed changes year-to-year in deer, elk, and moose hunting activity from 1990-2001 (as 

 measured by the long term average, +/- 1 standard deviation). FWP assumes that changes in the number 

 of hunters, hunter days, and antlerless permits in the future would be no greater than changes already seen 

 in the past. This period includes several major events, including, high hunter harvest years (e.g. 1991), 

 the severe winter of 1996-97, summer forest fires, major programmatic changes in mule deer 

 management, wolf pack activity in new areas, as well as significant increases in hunter opportunity for 

 antlerless elk in some areas. Even though wolves were present in Montana from 1990-2001, changes in 

 permits and hunter participation were driven by a host of factors including wolf predation, changes in 

 recruitment, overwinter survival, hunter opportunity, hunter demographics, previous hunter success, 

 changes in regulations, and hunter access. This combination of factors will persist into the future. 



The economic analyses focus on changes in antlerless harvest opportunity for deer and elk and in the 

 number of hunting permits for all moose. These are the primary management tools used by FWP to 

 annually balance hunting pressure with ungulate population levels and to influence population trends 

 relative to management objectives. 



Alternative 1. No Action 



Because the outcome of the pending changes in federal regulations were not known at the time of 

 printing, the environmental consequences of this alternative were predicted as if the current federal 

 management policies and regulations were carried forward from 2003 to 2015. For comparison, the 

 environmental consequences of this and the other alternatives are presented in a summary at the end of 

 this chapter (Table 43). 



Ill 



