In the last week of April, Wyoming’s Game and Fish Department published the Wyoming Gray Wolf Monitoring and Management report. In that report, the department notes that the end of 2021 marked 20 consecutive years the state exceeded the numerical, distributional, and temporal recovery criteria establish for wolves by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The numbers in the report show there are at least 314 wolves in at least 40 packs throughout the state of Wyoming. In the Wolf Trophy Game Management Area, the report lists at least 161 wolves spread across 24 packs. In Yellowstone National Park, the report lists at least 97 wolves in eight packs.
During this same time, there were 107 wolf mortalities across the state. Sixty-two of those happened within the boundaries of the WTGMA, in 38 deaths, wolves were documented as predatory animals, six happened in Yellowstone, and one death occurred on the Wind River Reservation. Eighty-four percent of these were human-caused, 13 percent occurred naturally, and three percent remain unknown. Fifty-six wolves were captured and radio-collared for monitoring and research in 2021.
