Wolves kill domestic animals in eastern Oregon

Two wolf attacks in eastern Oregon have left three sheep, one dog and one calf dead. The Statesman Journal reports the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife on Wednesday confirmed the two attacks from last week. They were the first attacks confirmed by the department since September. The first incident occurred June 20 after a Wallowa County livestock owner found a partially consumed calf with bite marks and wolf tracks near the carcass. GPS locations showed a radio-collared wolf to be within 4 miles of the carcass. On June 22, three sheep and one guard dog were found dead in Umatilla County. The department said the bite wounds and location of the attack were similar to other wolf attacks. Since returning to Oregon, wolves have killed 109 domestic animals. An annual report finds that wolves continued to grow in numbers and spread across Oregon in 2014. Wolves in counties with intensive prevention efforts were moving to other locations, such as Baker County and remote national forest grazing allotments. Ranchers were noticing more missing cattle, and there were likely many more wolves than the census documented because of the difficulty of finding every wolf...more