For Immediate Release

ODFW Will Kill Wolves in NE Oregon

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW)  today announced they will kill up to two members of the Harl Butte Wolf Pack. This comes as the agency refuses to incorporate greater transparency and accountability in revisions of the Oregon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan.

“If ODFW kills these wolves, it will demonstrate that Oregon has a failed wildlife agency and a broken wolf management plan,” said Oregon Wild Executive Director Sean Stevens.  “It’s clear now that Governor Brown needs to step in and reform this failing agency so that the public can trust that its wildlife is being protected.”

This wolf killing could drop Oregon’s known wolf population down to 109 known adult wolves, less than the official count at the beginning of 2016.

Under the existing Oregon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan, which is now 2 years overdue for its legally required update, ODFW cannot kill wolves without confirmation that non-lethal tools have been attempted and that those tools have proven inadequate.  Information on non-lethal techniques provided to Oregon Wild as of this release was incomplete. Oregon Wild and volunteers have monitored the public lands in this area and documented little human presence, though unattended cows and small calves vastly outnumber deer and elk.

Oregon Wild earlier this week sent a letter to Governor Kate Brown urging transparency and accountability in the wolf plan. Conservationists pointed to recent revelations of waste, fraud, and abuse in the taxpayer funded wolf depredation compensation plan as evidence of of the state’s inability to hold livestock interests accountable to the law.

SIZE COMPARISON: HARL BUTTE WOLVES TO UNATTENDED CALVES
(Credit: Oregon Wild)