Wyoming wildlife managers are slashing the number of wolves that can be killed by hunters in the northwestern corner of the state after a devastating canine distemper outbreak pushed the population to its lowest point since the animals were reintroduced to Yellowstone in the mid‑1990s. The draft regulations, announced Thursday, would cap the total allowable wolf harvest at 22 animals across the trophy game zone that borders the national park — half of last season’s 44‑wolf limit.
“As far as the overall mortality limit, it’s exactly half,” said Ken Mills, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s wolf biologist.
The reduction is not a response to hunting pressure. Last year’s hunters, operating under tighter restrictions in the trophy zone, killed 31 wolves. Instead, the culprit is canine distemper, a measles‑like virus that is exceptionally fatal to wolf pups. Mills and federal biologists detected the pathogen in 64% of the wolves they handled during routine capture work in 2025.
The toll is stark. Statewide, the wolf count at the start of 2026 was 253 — 77 fewer than the 330 wolves tallied at the end of 2024. Breeding pairs collapsed from 24 to 14 over the same period, a 42% plunge. In the trophy game area in the state’s mountainous northwest, the population fell 19% to 132 wolves, well below the state’s 160‑animal target.
“We want to grow the population by 28 wolves,” Mills told WyoFile, which originally reported the story.
Driving the urgency to boost numbers is the 160‑wolf goal itself, which is designed to ensure Wyoming upholds its end of the agreement that transferred wolf management from federal to state control in 2012. The deal requires the state to maintain at least 10 breeding pairs in the trophy zone. At the end of 2025, there were exactly 10 — leaving no margin for further decline.
The scale of the proposed cuts varies by region. Wolf numbers around Cody, Lander and Pinedale held relatively steady last year, but the population around Jackson plummeted. As a result, the agency is proposing to reduce the limit in four hunt areas stretching from Jackson Hole into the Green River basin from 19 to six. Along the west slope of the Tetons and in the Teton Wilderness, where wolves have also thinned, the limit would drop from five to two.
Hunting regulations across the three northern Rocky Mountain states differ sharply. Montana uses a quota system near the Yellowstone boundary, while Idaho permits largely unfettered wolf hunting on the ecosystem’s western edge. Wyoming, outside its trophy zone — in 85% of the state — classifies wolves as predators that can be killed by almost any means with no bag limits. That area will see no change.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department will host public meetings on the proposals at 6 p.m. May 26 in Jackson, May 28 in Cody, June 2 in Pinedale and June 3 in Lander. Written comments can be submitted through June 10 at WGFD.wyo.gov/get-involved/public-input. The state commission plans to vote on the regulations at its July 14‑15 meeting in Sheridan.
Mills expects criticism from both sides. “There will be people frustrated that the mortality limit is lower,” he said, “and members of the public that probably think we shouldn’t hunt wolves at all.”