Collared: Politics and Personalities in Oregon's Wolf Country

7. Litigation

63 Litigation June 2011 started off with another cow killed by a wolf from the Imnaha pack. A state-issued order for lethal removal of the wolf was delivered on the same day the depredation was confirmed.The ODFW spent the following three weeks tracking and conducting low-elevation flyovers in an execution patrol for any uncollared members of the Imnaha pack. None were found. The wolves had seemingly disappeared into the high country for the summer without leaving as much as a footprint behind. It was a reprieve that lasted three months. On September 22, 2011, biologists from the ODFW were called to investigate a possible livestock depredation on private land within the Imnahapack’sknownterritory.BythetimeMorganandhisteamarrivedatthe scene the carcass to be investigated was hardly recognizable as a calf. Dead no more then two days, the animal had been almost completely consumed. The little that was left—mostly tufts of hair and bits of tissue—formed sticky rust-colored puddles across a trampled grassy area roughly the size of a city block. Reports from the investigation described a trail of blood crossing into and out of an old falling-down corral. Wolf tracks of varying size wove back and forth across the area, following the gore, winding in circles, spaced close together at first, then farther apart, indicating a chase. The remaining cattle in the area were wide eyed and agitated. They startled at the wind and stood 64 Litigation unnaturally huddled together, with their flanks pushing against one another and their heads in the air. Their wet nostrils flared. Morgan determined wolves from the Imnaha pack had killed the calf roughly forty-eight hours earlier. Data mined from the GPS collar worn by OR-4, the pack’s alpha male, confirmed his presence at the scene during that time. OR-2, the alpha female, was also linked to the kill, and after the investigation of the calf’s death was complete, Morgan detected radio signals from her collar. Following these signals, he was able to visually identify OR-2 as she loitered near the kill site, then slipped into the thick forest of a nearby canyon. The loss of the calf marked the fourteenth livestock kill by the Imnaha pack. After confirming the depredation, Morgan and his superiors at the department made the decision to target OR-4 and an uncollared wolf from the Imnaha pack for lethal removal and sought permission from the state Wildlife Commission. The decision would reduce the pack to two animals: OR-2 and a pup born in spring 2011.“We took the decision of lethal removal very seriously and considered it a last resort in line with the management plan,” said Morgan. “Livestock owners throughout the area had been using numerous nonlethal measures in their efforts to avoid depredation on their private lands, but the targeted animals were a continuing problem.” Within twenty-four hours of making the request Morgan received the state’s go-ahead to hunt and shoot the wolves. On the morning of September 23, he followed the signals from OR-4’s GPS collar and spotted the big male, but he could not find a clean shot and did not fire his gun. Meanwhile, the ODFW’s decision to remove another wolf from the state’s population was met with widespread concern and disbelief, especially from communities west of the Cascades. The not-for-profit conservation group Oregon Wild began rallying stakeholders and petitioning the governor’s office with demands to halt what it deemed the unnecessary and wrongful killing of wolves.“At that point there were people chaining themselves to the doors at ODFW in their efforts to be heard,” said Rob Klavins, Oregon Wild’s wildlands and wildlife advocate.“Thousands of letters were being sent to the Litigation 65 governor’s office calling for the protection of wolves and outing the state for its illegal management of an endangered species.They received no response.” Oregon Wild was one of several conservation groups that had waded into the fray that surrounded the creation of the OWP in 2005, and as an organization it had spearheaded a majority of the wolf awareness campaigns and wolf-related political movements in the state. With more than three thousand dues-paying members and a thirty-eight-year history of activism in Oregon, Oregon Wild is a well known, well positioned advocacy group capable of navigating state politics. “We’d been...