Check out this Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife video of northeastern Oregon’s Imnaha wolves: It features the alpha female and two pups born in 2010. ODFW’s December wolf report suggests the pack may have had four pups last year – not two as officials had thought. An aerial survey put the minimum Imnaha pack count at 16 wolves. The agency cites 21 wolf reports for the month – 13 sightings, three track or scat findings and five howling reports.
As long as we’re on the subject, the Oregonian reports on a growing debate over whether these wolves (which were taken from Canada, reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park and allowed to roam into Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington and Oregon) really belong here. Some argue they are different from the wolves that originally lived in the state and say the Canadian wolves don’t belong here; others say science makes no distinction and that the wolves that are here have a rightful place in Oregon ecosystems.
As we’ve discussed, there are several angles to the debate over wolves in Oregon. But it usually boils down to a disagreement between people who want more management of wolves to control predation of cattle, deer and elk and threats to human safety vs. people who want to see the wolves reclaim their place in nature and provide the predator-prey balance to ecosystems as they have in the past.