Saturday, October 22, 2016

Wolves wander back into the news

A ODFW worker studies an immobilized wolf from the Imnaha Pack in February 2015. Photo: ODFW
A ODFW worker studies an immobilized wolf from the Imnaha Pack in February 2015. Photo: ODFW
SALEM, Oregon – Wallowa County wolves are behind two new acts of depredation. Both attacks were against calves, and one was caught on film by a hunter in the Devil’s Run Creek drainage.
The hunter spotted six wolves clustered around an object that proved to be the body of a calf. He sent pictures of a wolf near a group of cattle and of the corpse of the calf. It’s a good thing he did. By the time investigators arrived there was no carcass.

What they found instead was blood, wolf tracks and drag marks where the carcass had been. The Chesnimnus Pack is charged with the kill which was reported in September, but the result wasn’t announced until this week.

The second depredation, which was found last week in the Grouse Creek drainage area, is also thought to have occurred a month earlier. A 500-pound calf was found to be suffering from injuries that are consistent with a wolf attack. Investigators say that an unnamed group of wolves in that area are responsible. That group of wolves is also credited with two other acts of depredation since late September.

OLYMPIA, Washington – The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has decided to stop killing wolves in the Profanity Peak Pack. Lethal action against that pack in northeastern Washington was ordered after numerous attacks on cattle occurred.

As a result of the kill order, seven members of the pack were shot dead. WDFW also reports a pup from that pack died of natural causes. That means only four wolves remain in the pack and the state has decided they will cease hunting them since most of the cattle have left that area.

Profanity Peak is one of 19 packs documented in the state. Of those, 16 are located on the east side. Those wolves were removed from the federal endangered species list in 2009 and are managed solely by the state of Washington.

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