It's been way more than three years since wolves were planted in Oregon.
They were never gone.
The gov't trapper in Curry County killed two young ones back in the 1970s that, so far as dental conditions indicate, had never lived in captivity. I saw one cross I-5 by Sunny Valley just north of Grants Pass back in '87 or '88. I saw another near Elkton .. between I-5 and the coast .. in about '92. (Don't ask what magnification I saw it through or about any loud noises, I know <nothing>.). Another member here saw a pack chowing down on a cow they'd killed in a field between Powers and Myrtle Point. ODFW didn't acknowledge them because they had no means to manage the situation and would have been tasked with doing so if their existence were established, simple as that. I've gotten OR-7 on trail camera several times, others as well. We're seeing videos of wolves (probably the Indigo Pack) on graveled logging roads up by Diamond Lake now .. this fall. An acquaintance of mine reports seeing a pair just below Siskiyou Gap on the Oregon side in a big meadow .. near where FR 20 meets FR 22 in Jackson County.
They are here. They have been here. They never left.
More than that, they will always be here. With the political climate being what it is, even if a hunting season is opened for them(*), the quotas / bag limit will never be high enough for there to be any chance of them being wiped out.
(*) It may piss some folks off, but I am not "anti-wolf." I will, however, do my damnedest to draw the first tag and legally kill the first wolf in a wolf season in the state. Just for the sheer hell of doing it and thumbing my nose at the loons on the left.
Tom
