BILLINGS -- If you're itching to hunt a wolf, you might get your chance in Montana as early as fall 2008.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is hoping to remove wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains from the endangered species list by February. By then Montana, Wyoming and Idaho may all have plans in place for state-sponsored hunts.

The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks is in the early stages of planning, trying to answer basic questions about where and when the hunts might take place, what methods will be allowed and how many animals can be killed.

"We're basically starting from scratch," said Carolyn Sime, head of FWP's wolf management program.

State wildlife officials are conducting meetings in several parts of the state this summer to talk about the proposed hunt before developing a formal proposal later in the year. A meeting in Billings will be held this week.

Hunting wolves has long been part of all three states' plans to manage wolves once they're taken off the endangered species list.

In Montana, hunting will be allowed if there are 15 or more breeding pairs of wolves in the state. At the end of 2006, there were 21.

Earlier this year, the Montana Legislature approved a bill creating a wolf hunting license and setting fees at $19 for residents and $350 for nonresidents.

That's about all of the details that have been determined so far.

There isn't another wolf hunting program to base a Montana hunt on, Sime said. Wolves are hunted in Alaska and parts of Canada, but those places aren't also trying to conserve what was once an endangered population, she said. There are thousands of wolves in the upper Midwest, but hunts haven't been instituted there.

"Part of this is uncharted territory, so we're being very deliberate," Sime said.

Any public hunt will have to be flexible enough to respond to factors that can kill wolves in Montana, including disease outbreaks, vehicle strikes, livestock conflicts and other causes, Sime said. That could mean that some years there's a liberal number of wolf tags and other years it's conservative.

"We know that wolf numbers can go up very fast and come down very fast," Sime said.

So far, it's been difficult to gauge how much interest there is in hunting wolves in Montana, which according to federal figures has more hunters per capita than any other state. There's been speculation that there might be intense interest early on and then wane.

"But no one knows right now. We're all curious," Sime said.

It's possible that a hunt may be delayed if wolf delisting is challenged in court - as most observers expect it will be - and a judge issues an injunction while the case moves through the system. Even so, FWP officials say they can start laying the groundwork for the hunt and begin discussions about the size of harvest units, the length of the season, whether baiting would be allowed and a long list of other issues.

"It seems like there's a thousand little decisions to make," Sime said.

The Idaho Fish and Game Department has also started holding public meetings about a wolf hunt, said Ed Mitchell, an agency spokesman. They hope to have a plan developed before wolves are delisted next year.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department hasn't started formalizing a plan for a hunt, an agency spokesman said.

Sime said FWP will meet with its Citizens' Advisory Committees throughout the state between now and mid-September and hopes to have a proposal for the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission by December.