Three wolves shot after calf deaths
GLENNS FERRY, Idaho (AP) — Three wolves which strayed as far south as the Twin Falls area were shot from the air after some cattle deaths.
Fresh calf kills both Wednesday and Thursday night on rancher John McCallum’s property near Hammett led to the authorization from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to track and kill the wolves believed responsible, said Mark Collinge, director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services in Idaho.
Agents in an airplane found three wolves in the area Friday and killed all of them, he said.
Initially, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had authorized one wolf to be trapped, fitted with a radio collar and released.
Tracks of up to three wolves were found north of Hammett near the kill site.
“It’s an incremental type of approach, which is usual when dealing with wolves without radio collars,” Collinge said.
One wolf can be collared and released in order to find out if there is a new pack of wolves, he said.
The additional attacks and the multiple sets of tracks, however, resulted in a different plan.
Officials don’t think the wolves were separated from a pack.
“I doubt they were part of a larger pack because they would have been together,” he said. “There’s nothing to suggest there were more than three. This may have been the beginning of another pack.”
About 30 gray wolves were released in the central Idaho wilderness in 1995 and 1996. The reintroduction program already has produced 35 verified Idaho wolf packs and nearly 400 wolves in the state, according to the latest counts.
McCallum said he had not encountered wolves on his property until this year. But wolves can cross a huge distance in very little time.