Feds OK killing of wolf pack
CAMERON (AP) – A federal wildlife official ordered the Sentinel wolf pack destroyed Friday after it killed a Cameron family’s dog near their house.
The pack of six wolves has been hanging around Todd and Barbie Durham’s home since mid-February. Earlier this week, the wolves killed a neighbor’s yearling steer within 200 yards of three homes.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents darted one of the female wolves and fitted a radio collar on it after the pack killed the steer. FWS officials said then that three of the six wolves in the pack would be destroyed.
However, the collared female wolf was found shot to death later Friday in a field several miles away from the Durham home. The killing appeared to be illegal, but it was ‘absolutely not’ the Durham family that did the shooting, Bangs said.
The killing of the Durhams’ dog changed everything, said Ed Bangs, the agency’s wolf recovery leader.
‘It was an Australian shepherd that we had had for quite awhile,’ Barbie Durham told the Montana Standard. ‘It was one of the dogs that my kids loved the most. We’re just really, really frustrated right now.’