Tag: wolf recovery

Press Release: 2021 Worst Year for Oregon’s Wolf Population Growth Since Return

April 20, 2022 — Conservationists are concerned about the plateau of Oregon’s wolf population in 2021, largely resulting from poaching and agency killings. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (ODFW) annual wolf population report, released late yesterday, shows Oregon’s wolf population grew by the lowest percentage (just over one percent) since wolves naturally returned to the state. The 2021 minimum population of 175 wolves increased by just two animals from the 2020 minimum count of 173.

Press Release: VICTORY! Wolves’ Endangered Species Status Restored

February 10, 2022 — Today, a federal court restored Endangered Species Act protections for the gray wolf after they were eliminated by the Trump administration in 2020. The ruling orders the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to resume recovery efforts for the imperiled species. Today’s decision redesignates the gray wolf as a species threatened with extinction in the lower 48 states with the exception of the Northern Rockies population (map), for which wolf protections were removed by Congress in 2011.

Western Wolf Coalition Challenges Nationwide Wolf Delisting

January 14, 2021 — The most recent data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its state partners show an estimated 4,400 wolves inhabit the western Great Lakes states, but only 108 wolves in Washington state (with only 20 outside of eastern Washington), 158 in Oregon (with only 16 outside of northeastern Oregon), and a scant 15 exist in California. Nevada, Utah, and Colorado have had a few wolf sightings over the past three years, but wolves remain functionally absent from their historical habitat in these states.

Press Release: Wolf Pups Documented Near Iconic Mt. Hood

August 29, 2018 — The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed today that a recently documented pair of wolves on the Warm Springs Reservation in Wasco County had at least two pups this year. The White River Pack pups are the first documented in the northern Oregon Cascades since wolves were exterminated from the state nearly 70 years ago.

Press release: Gray wolves documented on Oregon’s Mt. Hood

January 16, 2018 — The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife announced today that two gray wolves have been documented on the Mt. Hood National Forest. A remote camera captured an image showing two wolves traveling together in southern Wasco County. Until now, only lone wolves have been documented dispersing through the area since they began migrating back into the state from Idaho in 2007.

Gray Wolf Background and Resources

Extermination. Seen as incompatible with the settlement of the West, the gray wolf was trapped, poisoned and shot by state and federal governments and private bounty hunters to the point of near extinction. Protection. The species had been listed on the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) since the 1973. A year after being delisted in … Continue reading Gray Wolf Background and Resources

Press Release: Petition Filed to Require Nonlethal Steps to Control Washington Wolves

July 9, 2014 — Eight conservation groups filed a petition late Friday requesting that the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife enact rules that sharply limit the use of lethal control of wolves to respond to livestock depredations. Most prominently the petition asks the state to require livestock producers to exhaust nonlethal measures to prevent depredations before any lethal action can be taken. In 2012 the Department killed seven wolves in the Wedge Pack despite the fact that the livestock producer who had lost livestock had taken little action to protect his stock.

Press Release: Settlement Reached in Wolf Legal Fight

May 24, 2013 — After seventeen months of grueling negotiations, conservationists, Governor John Kitzhaber, the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife (ODFW), and the livestock industry have reached a compromise settlement agreement that resolves a long-running legal battle over wolf conservation in Oregon.