Checking and Placing Traps

FWP imposes rules on trapping practices to ensure best management practices and minimize non-target captures.

• Trappers must physically check all wolf traps and snares at least every 48 hours to ensure captured animals are handled promptly.
• This requirement minimizes animal suffering and allows for the release of non-target species (e.g., furbearers, bears).
• Trappers must immediately dispatch wolves via gunshot upon capture, unless they have coordinated with FWP in advance to collar and release the animal. You cannot "high-grade" your take by releasing a wolf that you do not want. It is lawful to harvest wolves that have radio collars, neck bands, ear tags, and/or other markers, but markers and radio collars must be returned to FWP. If the wolf is radio-collared and uninjured, and the trapper has an unfilled bag limit, the wolf may be released. Please report the killing of a marked animal to the local FWP office.
• Failure to pick up traps at the end of the trapping season or attending to them in a manner that wastes animals constitutes a misdemeanor per Montana law.