The Wyoming Game and Fish Department will host public meetings this month to discuss proposed changes to wolf management and the 2013 wolf hunting season.

In Cody, the meeting takes place at 7 p.m. May 23 at the Holiday Inn.

As proposed, this year’s wolf quota in Wyoming’s trophy areas would be 26 rather than the 52 wolves it was last year.

Because the department reached its reduced population goal in 2012, population reductions efforts will be more conservative this year, said the Game and Fish.

In each of the 12 trophy game areas, including the seasonal trophy game zone, quota numbers are more or less half of what they were last year.

Forty-one wolves were killed in the trophy areas, and 25 wolves were harvested in the predator zone last last year.

“We expect to have another successful hunting season,” said Mark Bruscino, Game and Fish statewide supervisor of the large carnivore management section.

Once again, wolves can be hunted in the trophy game zones from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31. The exception is area 12, the seasonal trophy game area south of Jackson, running Oct. 15 to Dec. 31. Wolves will be classified there as trophy game from Oct. 15 to the end of February of the next year. From March 1 to Oct. 14, wolves will be labeled predators in area 12.

As with black bears and mountain lions, it is the hunter’s responsibility to verify a hunt area’s quota has not been reached before hunting that area.

It is not illegal to take wolves with radio collars; some wolves with collars were shot last year. All the hunters who harvested collared wolves last year said they could not see those collars from a distance, Bruscino said.

If a hunter takes a wolf with a radio collar, in the predator or trophy zone, he or she is asked to return the collar to the Game and Fish Department.

For the last 50 years, department employees have been collaring wildlife, and they expect animals with collars to be killed by hunters, Bruscino said.

No trapping is allowed in the trophy zone.

“We’re not even considering trapping at this time,” Bruscino said.

The 2012 Northern Rocky Mountain Gray Wolf Distinct Population contained more than 1,674 wolves, with 321 packs containing 103 breeding pairs, according to information from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department is managing only about 10 percent of the northern Rocky Mountain population, Bruscino said.

Copies of the proposed wolf hunting regulation can be found at the department’s website at wgfd.wyo.gov/web2011/HUNTING-1000179.aspx. The department must receive written comments on the proposed changes by 5 p.m. on June 12. The Game and Fish Commission hearing to take action on the regulations will be July 9-10 in Saratoga.