ODFW puts collars on three Imnaha wolves

Workers from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife collared two wolves on Feb. 12, and a third on Feb. 13 in the Imnaha wildlife unit east of Joseph.

“The wolves were in good body condition and the capture went well,” said Russ Morgan, ODFW wolf coordinator.

The operation effort began with workers in helicopters firing tranquilizer darts to temporarily immobilize the wolves, said Michelle Dennehy, a spokeswoman for ODFW.

She said the crew was fortunate in that one of the collared wolves is thought to be the alpha, or dominant, male in the Imnaha pack.

That wolf, one of the two collared on Feb. 12, weighs 115 pounds.

The GPS unit is more useful because it automatically sends the collared wolf’s location to ODFW computers, whereas biologists have to search for the radio collar signals, Dennehy said.

“It’s good that we got the alpha male,” she said, because the rest of the pack tends to stay close to the alpha male and alpha female.

ODFW officials had intended to collar wolves from the Imnaha pack since a biologist videotaped that pack on Nov. 12, 2009, Dennehy said.

(The 1-minute, 32-second video is available on the ODFW Web site at: www.dfw.state.or.us/news/video_gallery/imnaha_wolf_pack.asp)

 Morgan believes the Imnaha pack includes five adults and five pups.

One of the adults, which is believed to be the pack’s alpha female, was fitted with a radio collar on July 17, 2009.

That female, which ODFW designated B-300, is a four-year-old that was born in Idaho.

ODFW first confirmed B-300 was in Oregon in December 2007 when biologists detected the signal from the radio collar that Idaho officials fitted to the wolf in 2006.

Oregon biologists first saw B-300 in January 2008 in the mountains south of Wallowa, Morgan said.

The radio transmitter in the wolf’s collar failed in September 2008.

During the winter of 2008-09 biologists found tracks from a pair of adult wolves in the area, Morgan said.

On July 17, 2009, he trapped an adult wolf that turned out to be B-300. Morgan attached a new radio collar to the wolf.

Biologists used the signals from B-300’s collar to find the three wolves that were collared this month.

Although the size of wolfpacks can vary, breeding usually occurs only between the alpha male and female, according to ODFW.

Female wolves usually birth about five pups, but larger litters are not uncommon, Morgan said.

In addition to the Imnaha wolves, ODFW continues to track a wolf pack in the Wenaha wildlife unit northeast of La Grande.

Biologists have yet to collar any wolves from the Wenaha pack, although officials have found tracks and scat in several places.

ODFW estimates there are four wolves in the Wenaha pack.

The Imnaha and Wenaha packs are the only confirmed packs in Oregon, although ODFW continues to find evidence of individual wolves.

One of ODFW’s tasks is to determine how many “breeding pairs” of wolves live in the state — a statistic that determines when wolves could be removed from the state’s endangered species list.

Wolves are no longer on the federal endangered species list in the part of Oregon east of Highways 395, 78 and 95, an area that includes Baker and Wallowa counties.

According to Oregon’s wolf management plan, the state Fish and Wildlife Commission will consider delisting wolves when biologists have confirmed at least four breeding pairs are living in Eastern Oregon for three consecutive years.

To qualify as a breeding pair, a pair of wolves or a pack must produce at least two pups that survive until Dec. 31 of the year they were born.