3 wolf deaths appear unrelated
Gazette Wyoming Bureau
Federal officials are investigating the deaths of three wolves in Wyoming,
including one that appears to have been shot.
The dead wolves include the alpha males for the Greybull River and
Sunlight Basin packs, according to Mike Jimenez, U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service wolf coordinator in Wyoming.
The wolves were found this fall at different times and in different places
so there is no direct evidence that the deaths might be linked, said
Dominic Domenici, FWS agent in charge for Wyoming.
He said he couldn’t provide more details about possible causes of death
because the investigation is continuing.
All of the wolves were found on public land or near public land. Domenici
declined to say exactly where.
It was difficult to determine how long each of the three wolves have been
dead, he said, adding that “it looks like it spanned quite a period of
time.”
The three carcasses have been sent to the National Fish and Wildlife
Forensics Laboratory in Ashland, Ore. Domenici said he hopes to hear back
from the lab in the next two to three weeks about how the wolves died.
If it turns out that one or more of the wolves was killed illegally, the
investigation will continue, he said. It is a federal crime to kill a wolf
without authorization because wolves are protected under the federal
Endangered Species Act.
It has been about two years since there has been an illegal killing of a
wolf in Wyoming, he said, so this latest batch of three dead wolves within
the last month seemed odd.
“It seems very unusual to us in Wyoming because there’s been such a time
period without finding unexplained dead wolves,” he said. “But with the
increasing number of wolves, you’re going to find more dead wolves either
through natural causes or illegal causes.”
The Greybull River pack tends to roam southwest of Meeteetse; the Sunlight
Basin is northwest of Cody.