Federal officials kill two wolves linked to killing eastern Oregon livestock

Acting on a kill order issued by Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Wildlife Services shoots two of Oregon's few wolves.

In April, a trail camera captured this image of the two wolves returning to the ranch where they had killed livestock.

U.S. Department of Agriculture officials shot and killed two wolves today that were linked to five attacks on livestock in the Keating Valley area of Baker County.

The wolves were shot after nonlethal efforts failed to keep them from killing livestock again. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife then authorized Agriculture's Wildlife Services to kill the animals, one of which was wearing a tracking collar, from a fixed-wing aircraft.

"It's unfortunate that we got to this step," Russ Morgan, wolf coordinator for Fish and Wildlife, said in a news release, "but these wolves continued to kill livestock despite our many efforts to keep them out of trouble. We cannot allow chronic losses to continue."

Officials linked the male and female wolves to the loss of 29 domestic animals in five separate incidents between April 9 and Aug. 27. Four of the five incidents occurred on one ranch, and the fifth occurred at an adjacent ranch.

The two wolves killed in Baker County were yearling animals and never bred. Their genetics link them to Idaho wolves, but it is not clear if they were born in Oregon or came to Oregon from Idaho.

For unknown reasons, the wolves were on their own at a young age, which could have contributed to their inability to survive on wild animals rather than livestock.

The wolf pair was linked to the losses through evidence including bite marks and other wounds on the livestock, track sizes, the wolves' historic use of the area and the style of the killings.

After the first incident, Oregon Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Defenders of Wildlife and the landowners worked together to try nonlethal measures to keep the wolves from killing livestock again.

Those measures included placing a radio collar on one of the wolves so it could be monitored, installing fladry (flagged fencing that can be a wolf deterrent), using a radio-activated-guard box that makes noise when a radio collar approaches, double-penning livestock, keeping livestock near homes at night, burying carcass piles and using guard dogs.

Also, Fish and Wildlife hazed the wolves out of the Keating Valley area multiple times with an airplane or helicopter and used noise-making cracker shells to discourage them from remaining in the Keating Valley area around livestock operations.

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