Wolves had to go

Which is too bad.

We’d call them sacrificial lambs except that seems inappropriate given the circumstances.

Workers from the federal Wildlife Services agency carried out that sentence on Saturday morning by shooting and killing both wolves in the Wallowa Mountains northeast of Baker City.

This action was necessary to resolve an unacceptable situation.

The wolves killed more than two dozen sheep this spring, all within sight of a home, then returned four months later to kill four more sheep and one goat.

We’re not convinced the wolves should have gotten away with their first transgressions.

But their second wave of sheep-killing was intolerable for Oregon ranchers who ought to have the legal right to protect their property but who don’t, with rare exceptions, when wolves are involved.

We’d wager that not even pro-wolf groups want wolves getting into the sort of chronic trouble that this pair did.

Wolves, after all, are supposed to be symbols of wilderness, not barnyard slaughterers.

The more livestock wolves kill in Oregon, the more controversial, and sluggish, their recolonization of the state will be.

Yet if wolves stay in the backcountry, which is the habitat best-suited to the species, then the potential for future livestock killing, and wolf executions, will be much reduced.

Even Curt Jacobs, the rancher who owned most of the slain sheep, said he can tolerate wolves if they don’t eat into his bottom line.

“As long as they stay out of trouble they’re fine,” Jacobs said Monday.

Fortunately, just two wolves were responsible for the Keating Valley depredations

That’s a significant percentage of the wolves in Oregon — estimates put the number at a dozen or so — but the loss of this pair hardly threatens the species’ survival in the state.

We hope this unpleasant conclusion to this particular wolf tale is an anomaly in the animal’s return to its historic range in Oregon.

There is reason to believe it will be.

Biologists say it was unusual for this pair of yearling wolves — a male and a female that had not bred — to be traveling together rather than as part of a pack.

Biologists speculate that the absence of older wolves, ones more skilled in hunting deer and elk, might have forced the young pair to resort to preying on comparatively helpless sheep, calves and one goat.

The wolves did come back to the Jacobs ranch even after they had been harassed by firecracker-like devices, sirens and flag-festooned fencing.

If the biologists’ theory is sound, then Oregon ranchers might not need to unduly fear wolves.

And now they have proof that the authorities are capable of actually getting rid of rogue wolves rather than just talking regretfully about the loss of livestock.