Photo: Oregon Wild

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) shot and killed two adult wolves from the Harl Butte family group to protect cattle grazing on private and public lands.

One wolf was killed Sunday night and a second was shot Tuesday morning. One was killed from the ground and the other from the air.

A week prior, conservation organization Oregon Wild sent a letter to Governor Kate Brown urging her to provide increased transparency and accountability from the ODFW as they considered livestock industry requests to kill wolves of the Harl Butte Pack. The request came just a year after ODFW killed the Imnaha Pack in the same area, and raises troubling questions about what, if any, effort livestock operations are making to avoid wolf conflicts.

Monitoring by volunteers from Oregon Wild have documented little human presence on public lands grazing permit in the area, where cows now vastly outnumber deer and elk.

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