Written by Baker City Herald
A spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said this morning that investigators have confirmed a wolf from the Imnaha pack killed a cow recently in eastern Baker County.
The adult cow belonged to the Pine Valley Ranch, said Merlin Flake, who manages the Halfway-based ranch.
The cow, which birthed a calf this year, weighed in excess of 1,300 pounds, Flake said. The calf has not been found.
This is the first confirmed wolf depradation on livestock in Baker County since 2009.
During the spring and summer of that year, a pair of wolves killed two dozen sheep and one goat on Curt and Annie Jacobs’ ranch in Keating Valley.
Federal officials shot and killed those wolves in September 2009 in the Wallowa Mountains.
Since then, wolves have killed several calves in Wallowa County.
Flake said a group of Forest Service employees who were on a training hike found the cow Friday on national forest land near Sugarloaf Reservoir. That’s in the Wallowa Mountains about 13 air miles north of Halfway, and two miles northwest of Fish Lake. Sugarloaf Reservoir is just south of the Eagle Cap Wilderness.
ODFW officials confirmed Saturday that wolves killed the cow.
Flake said Pine Valley Ranch has a permit to graze as many as 500 cow/calf pairs on the Forest Service allotment that includes the Sugarloaf Reservoir area. Cattle usually graze that allotment from July 6 to Oct. 16, he said.
ODFW officials last week confirmed the presence of a wolf pack in the upper Minam River drainage in the Wallowas. That’s Oregon’s sixth known wolf pack.