TWIN FALLS, Idaho — The Idaho Department of Fish and Game is using hundreds of game cameras to document and count the population of wolves in the state.
In 2019, Fish and Game staff deployed around 600 cameras, and many of them were in the Magic Valley region.
The game cameras are also being used to opportunistically captured images of the amazing diversity of wildlife found in Idaho.
These cameras took about 11 million pictures over several months.
Fish and Game is often asked how many wolves are there in Idaho. The agency is using the game cameras to assist with a statewide population monitoring program.
Using some of the game cam images collected across the Magic Valley in 2019, a short video shows a sampling of wildlife in the region.
In the video, there are elk, mule deer, moose, coyote, red fox, gray wolf, wolverine, dusky grouse, northern saw-whet owl and black bear.
Fish and Game plans to use the cameras again this summer to gather more photographic evidence of wolves across Idaho and estimate their population.
The wolf monitoring is part of a larger statewide project that uses game cameras to estimate populations for a variety of species.
