Written by Katy Nesbitt
The Imnaha wolf pack’s alpha male was captured on the south end of the Zumwalt Prairie yesterday afternoon and outfitted with a global positioning collar.
The approximately 6-year-old black wolf was in very good health, according to Russ Morgan, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s wolf coordinator.
On Wednesday, Wallowa County pilot Joe Spence and biologist Pat Matthews flew in fog and stormy weather to locate the pack that now consists of the alpha male, the alpha female and one pup born last spring.
Matthews located the wolves and contacted Morgan in La Grande. Baker Air Service out of Baker City flew Morgan to the wolves’ location, where he was able to shoot the alpha male with a tranquilizing dart.
Wolf Biologist Roblyn Brown assisted Morgan from the ground and the wolf was collared and evaluated.
The alpha male’s collar has two radio transmissions. It has global positioning that sends data to a computer so biologists can track his whereabouts every few hours. It also emits a radio signal that can be picked up using a receiver.
The global positioning data helps biologists communicate the wolf’s whereabouts to livestock producers in a short amount of time. Radio signals sent out from the collar can only be received within a few short miles.
The alpha male has now been collared three times. He was first captured in February 2010 when Morgan shot him with a tranquilizer dart from a helicopter. By May of that year, his collar stopped working. Rumored to be dead, a photograph of him was taken by a game camera late that summer.
Last spring, he was caught in a trap and outfitted with a second collar. By January, the global positioning part of the collar quit working — prompting ranchers to request he be captured and collared again.
The last two years, Morgan and an interagency crew captured and collared wolves in frigid February temperatures. This year, Morgan said, the capture went much easier because it was warmer and the wolves were in open country.
“We were waiting for him to be out there (on the Zumwalt Prairie). It is very difficult to capture them in timber,” said Morgan.
When Morgan and Brown collared three Imnaha pack wolves in February 2011, temperatures hovered around 6 degrees and the wolves were found in deep snow.
Wednesday’s capture went quickly and using a local helicopter saved the agency time and money.
Morgan said he would like to get more collars on the Walla Walla pack wolves in Umatilla County and plans to follow the same scenario.
Morgan said, “Collaring wolves is based on opportunity. We can’t just capture wolves any time we want. They have to be in the right location.”
Most of the work goes into locating wolves on the ground before Morgan takes to the air armed with tranquilizing darts; the trickiest part of a capture. Waiting for the pack to emerge from the forest is a big part of the timing, he said.
Collaring wolves is only one way to help prevent livestock depredations. Morgan said two ranches that have suffered cattle loss this winter now have fladry, electrified flagged fencing, surrounding their calving pastures.
Ranches in areas heavily traveled by the Imnaha pack are also considering using fladry and radio-activated guard boxes as non-lethal wolf-deterring measures this spring.