By Kale Williams | The Oregonian/OregonLive
After being removed from the endangered species list, gray wolves in Oregon continue to rebound as the Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Thursday that two new litters of wolf pups have been confirmed after they were caught on trail cameras.
The two litters — one believed to be sired by celebrity wolf OR-7 in the Rogue-Siskiyou National Forest and the other by his brother, OR-3, in Lake County — mark the continued proliferation of a species that once roamed the entire state in large numbers, but was effectively eradicated in the mid 1900s in a government-sponsored attempt to appease livestock farmers.
“It’s incredibly exciting that Oregon’s wolves are starting to find their way back to places this remarkable species once called home,” Amaroq Weiss, West Coast wolf organizer for the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “The fact that individual wolves are coming into this same general area tells us how important it is to keep wildlands available for continued safe passage, and to keep legal protections in place for wolves at both the state and federal levels.”
OR-7, who got his name because he was the seventh wolf to be captured and fitted with a radio collar in Oregon, was the first to establish a pack, known as the Rogue Pack, in the western part of the state after more than 60 years.
His brother, OR-3, was fitted with a radio collar that stopped working and biologists assumed he had died until he showed up on a trail camera with his distinctive ear tags. He ended up pairing with OR-28, a female fitted with a radio collar, and the two were dubbed the Silver Lake Wolves.
Their recent litter marks the first known pups for 8-year-old OR-3.
“When an 8-year-old wolf has his first-known litter of pups and when his 8-year-old brother is confirmed to have had his third litter, it’s a moment of awe and wonder,” said Weiss. “Oregon killed off its wolf population by the 1940s but state and federal protections have allowed these magnificent animals to make a comeback, and those protections should remain in place until wolves are fully recovered.”
The gray wolf lost its place on the Oregon endangered species list in 2015 after the animals reached a population milestone — four pairs had bred for the third straight year — which set in motion a process to remove their protections.
Because of state’s wolf program, it remains illegal to kill a wolf except under very limited circumstances, but advocates argued that the removal of protections put the species at greater risk to poachers.
A move to block the removal failed earlier this year, but the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups have filed a legal challenge to the delisting.
Wildlife officials have said that the state can support up to 1,400 gray wolves, but Oregon’s population currently stands at around 150 who only inhabit roughly 12 percent of land suitable for the species.