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Whilst a sheep-killing gray wolf may perhaps still roaming in Whitman County, a new wolf pair has been confirmed in Asotin County and one more pair has been reported near the Chelan-Okanogan county line, state wildlife officials say.
These are in addition to the 14 wolf packs recognized in the state plus other person wolves roaming from Idaho to the Cascades.
Whitman County sheep ranchers, who this month suffered the county’s very first livestock losses to wolf attacks in decades, have moved their flock of about 1,200 sheep from a pasture closer to their Lamont-region home.
A lamb was killed by a coyote final weekend just before the Art Swannack loved ones had all of their predator-deterrent fencing in place, stated Joey McCanna, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife conflict specialist.
A single of three Anatolian shepherds that had been safeguarding the sheep has been missing for practically two weeks and is presumed dead, McCanna said.
Judging from tracks, he mentioned he doubted the four-year-old male guard dog may well have teamed up with the wolf. A guard dog in the Ione area hooked up with a female wolf last year about this time and they mated. State wildlife officials made use of a helicopter to capture the female wolf so she could be spayed to avoid the birth of hybrids.
“That was a extremely uncommon scenario,” McCanna said. “In most situations a dog that crosses paths with a wolf gets ripped apart.”
Wildlife staffers have place out motion-sensor cameras but have not captured a photo of a wolf in Whitman County.
“We nevertheless think the two sheep depredations we’ve confirmed have been by one wolf,” McCanna said.
The case of a Whitman County wolf shot by a Pullman area farmer Oct. 12 is nonetheless being explored by the prosecutor’s office and no charges have been filed. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife police delivered their proof in the case to Prosecutor Denis Tracy on Nov. 19.
Elsewhere, wolf recovery continues to be debated across the country.
A federal judge last week issued a ruling the place the gray wolves of the Excellent Lakes area back under Endangered Species protections. The Excellent Lakes region has three,700 wolves in the location that’s about the size of Idaho, which has about 700 wolves.
The judge sided with quite a few groups such as the Humane Society of the United States that filed a lawsuit charging that the 2012 delisting of Wonderful Lakes wolves from the Endangered Species list had been “arbitrary and capricious.”
The lawsuit was opposed by a coalition that included the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, nearby hunting groups and other people as effectively as U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
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