The Wyoming Game and Fish Department on Thursday proposed a quota of 25 wolves for the first trophy hunting season in the northwest part of the state this fall.

The agency said it would be taking comment on the proposal and would hold public meetings in eight towns around the region before submitting its plan to the Game and Fish Commission for approval.

The department is proposing a hunt season only; trapping could be considered next year. Department spokesman Eric Keszler called the proposed quota of 25 “a very conservative start to hunting wolves in the trophy area of Wyoming.”

The 2007 count of wolves in Wyoming, the latest available, estimates 188 outside Yellowstone National Park. An additional 171 were estimated in the world’s first national park.

“We don’t think this proposed hunting season or Wyoming’s wolf plan poses any threat to the recovered wolf population in Wyoming,” Keszler said.

The proposal divides northwest Wyoming into four hunt areas. Around Jackson Hole, Area 3, “Gros Ventre,” would encompass the country south and west of Togwotee Pass, north of Hoback Canyon and west to Idaho. Grand Teton National Park and the National Elk Refuge would be excluded.

The plan proposes hunters killing five wolves in the Gros Ventre hunt unit between Oct. 1 and Nov. 15. A five-wolf quota is proposed for each of the Green River and Sunlight hunt units, where hunting would run through Nov. 30.

Ten wolves would be shot in the Franc’s Peak hunt unit, the state’s largest, which would stretch from Cody to Dubois and encompass the Teton and Washakie wilderness areas of the Bridger-Teton and Shoshone national forests. Hunting there also would run from Oct. 1 to Nov. 30.

Under the plan, hunters would be required to report wolf kills within 24 hours. When the quota limit is reached for a particular area, the hunting season would close.

At the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, director Franz Camenzind said he worries about five Jackson Hole packs that live in or travel through the Franc’s Peak and Gros Ventre units.

“I’m very concerned that every pack in Jackson Hole region is going to be under hunting pressure with a grand total of 15 animals” that could be shot, Camenzind said. “The Teton Wilderness is pretty saturated with outfitters, many of whom have expressed deep dislike for wolves.”

The state’s elk population is 14 percent above objective.

Yellowstone’s Delta Pack, which inhabits the most remote country in the Lower 48, travels out of the park and into the wilderness, Camenzind said. The state’s position that hunting would reduce the need for the shooting of wolves harming livestock, which Game and Fish outlined  Thursday in announcing the hunt seasons, does not hold water, he said. Keszler disagreed.

Camenzind said there are positive aspects to the department’s proposal.

“They could have had higher quotas or longer seasons,” he said. “There’s no trapping, which is very good news for lynx and wolverine.

“The 24-hour reporting period I think is good,” Camenzind said. “It could have been worse, it could be better.”

Wyoming’s wolf law and plan says the state could manage the species for as few as approximately 30 wolves outside Yellowstone, as long as they are distributed among a sufficient number of packs.

The state is obviously concerned about a pending lawsuit that seeks to put the wolf back under federal protection, Keszler said in a telephone interview from Cheyenne on Thursday. The proposed season should not jeopardize the viability of the species in the Equality State, he said.

A hearing in Missoula is scheduled for May 29 on whether a federal court should stop proposed hunting in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. The federal government turned wolf management over to those three states earlier this year.

The proposed regulations would allow an archery season, but it was not immediately clear from Game and Fish documents whether that would open earlier than the rifle season, as is common with other big and trophy game seasons.

Camenzind said only the hunting season would tell what impacts the quotas would have on pack behavior and structure. Wolves, he noted, are the most social land mammal in North America.

The Jackson comment meeting will be at 7 p.m. June 11 at the Antler Inn.