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PORTLAND, Ore.— Wolf OR7 and a mate have produced offspring in southwest Oregon’s Cascade Mountains, wildlife biologists confirmed this week. In early May, biologists suspected that OR7, originally from northeast Oregon, had a mate in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest when remote cameras captured several images of what appeared to be a black female wolf in the same area.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) biologists returned to the area Monday, June 2 and observed two pups. Scat samples from the area have been collected and submitted to a laboratory for DNA analysis, which will take several weeks.

An image of the two pups can be seen at ODFW’s wolf photo gallery ( http://www.dfw.state.or.us/images/photo_gallery/wolves_in_the_news/ind
ex.html). It is likely there are more pups as wolf litters typically number four to six pups.

The pups mark the first known wolf reproduction in the Oregon Cascades since the mid-1940s. “This is very exciting news,” said Paul Henson, state supervisor of the Oregon U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office. “It continues to illustrate that gray wolves are being recovered.” http://dfw.state.or.us/news/2014/june/060414.asp

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State Board Votes to Protect California Wolf

Gray wolves roaming into California from Oregon will have added protections now that a state board has listed the species as endangered despite other parts of the country relaxing rules on hunting the iconic predator.

The California Fish and Game Commission's vote Wednesday came as biologists announced that an Oregon wolf famous for hopscotching between the two states has fathered pups within about 50 miles of the border, making it a matter of time before more wolves make California home.

That wolf — known as OR-7 and carrying a GPS tracking collar — forced the debate in California that has pitted cattle ranchers against those who wish to see the packs flourish after a long hiatus. Ranchers view the predator as a threat to valuable herds.

"This is a red-letter day in the history of wolves for this state," said Amaroq Weiss of the Center for Biological Diversity, which pushed for listing.

The discovery of the pups marked the farthest west and south a wolf pack has established itself since the animals were reintroduced in the Northern Rockies in the 1990s, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist John Stephenson said.

Nationwide, bounty hunting and poisoning drove wolves to widespread extermination in the early 1900s. The animals have rebounded in recent decades after being reintroduced into the Northern Rockies, leading officials to lift federal protections in the Northern Rockies and western Great Lakes.

But with the resurgence have come more livestock killings and declines in some big-game herds that wolves prey on.

Idaho and Montana have responded by adopting aggressive hunting programs to bring down the predators' numbers in an effort to reduce attacks on livestock and big game. But in Oregon, ranchers must adopt nonlethal measures to protect their herds before the state will kill wolves that attack livestock.

Any wolves that inhabit western Oregon or California are still covered by the U.S. Endangered Species Act, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to decide in December on a proposal to lift that protection.

The game commission in California voted 3-1 to list wolves as endangered. State game officials recommended the commission adopt a less restrictive wolf management plan being developed by stakeholders.

Weiss said the listing requires state officials to do more. "They actually have a duty to enhance and restore, not just to conserve and manage them," she said.

Kirk Wilbur of the California Cattlemen's Association said wolves not only kill livestock but also stress the cattle that survive, hampering their health and the rancher's profits.

Wilbur favored a management plan that would give ranchers the ability to shoot a wolf that attacks and kills livestock, or at least shoo them away. That may no longer be an option, he said.

"Something as benign as chasing a wolf off your property could be a violation of the law now," Wilbur said.

Wolf advocates at the Center for Biological Diversity filed the petition made final Wednesday two months after OR-7 was discovered crossing into California. More at http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/state-board-votes-protect-c
alifornia-wolf-23994522

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