Wolf Monitor, Current News, Sightings, Legal Action, Wolf Pack Maps, Photos     By News Reporter Cat Urbigkit • Pinedale Online!

 Wolf News

Welcome to Wolf Watch!        |     Books by Cat Urbigkit
Wyoming news reporter Cat Urbigkit lives in the heart of wolf country, near Boulder, Wyoming, a few hundred miles south of Yellowstone National Park. As a news reporter, rancher, researcher and Wyoming resident, she has followed the wolf issue for many years and written many articles on the topic, as well as an upcoming book on the history of wolves in Wyoming.
   The goal of this website is to present up-to-date, accurate information about what is happening with wolves, focusing on wolves in the Rocky Mountains, but referring to wolf happenings outside our region when there is some local relevance. Rather than an agenda-driven advocacy site, this is the place to be for the facts about wolves, with a strong focus on what’s happening on the ground.
   We invite those living in areas inhabited by wolves to contact Cat with news tips, photographs, or other information. We also invite those who want to support this endeavor to sign on as sponsors, and for our readers to support those sponsors.

2019 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2018 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2017 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2016 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2015 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2014 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2013 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2012 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2011 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2010 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2009 Wolf Watch Story Archive

2008 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2007/2006 Watch Wolf Story Archive

7/21/2020: Wolf news - 7/21/2020
(By Cat Urbigkit) This wolf news roundup includes stories from Colorado, Oregon, California and Washington. Topics include push for a Colorado ballot initiative regarding wolf reintroduction, a look at livestock depredations by wolves in Oregon, eight calves injured by wolves in Washington. Mexican wolf recovery has increased over the last decade. According to the Arizona Game & Fish Department: "During the month of June, there were 21 confirmed wolf depredation incidents on livestock and two livestock injured by wolves. There were five nuisance incidents investigated in June..... (Click on the link above for the complete story.)

6/13/2020: More wolves reported in Colorado
(By Colorado Parks & Wildlife) Wolves are a federally endangered species in Colorado and until that designation changes, all wolf management is under direction of the federal government, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Killing a wolf in Colorado is a federal crime and can be punishable with up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. As the weather improves and more people are recreating in the outdoors, there have been more sightings of potential wolves in the state. Wildlife managers recently captured an image of a lone wolf feeding on an elk carcass in northwest Colorado. A wolf with a wildlife radio tracking collar was seen Larimer County. CPW biologists and veterinarians have analyzed scat (feces) samples and determined that several members of the pack in northwest Colorado are positive for eggs of the tapeworm parasite Echinococcus canadensis. This parasite can lead to hydatid disease in wild and domestic ungulates. These tapeworms have been found in wolves in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. These parasites can be passed from infected feces to wildlife, livestock and humans..... (Click on the link above for the complete story.)

6/6/2020: Wyoming News 6/6/2020
(By Cat Urbigkit) Click on this link to read stories about wolf encounters, news about a gray wolf in Utah, a wolf attack in British Columbia, and update on Mexican wolves in the desert southwest..... (Click on the link above for the complete story.)

4/17/2020: Wyoming has at least 311 wolves
(By Cat Urbigkit) At the end of 2019, Wyoming’s wolf population exceeded recovery criteria for the 18th consecutive year, according to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s annual wolf report. At least 311 wolves in 43 packs inhabit the state, including 94 wolves in eight packs in Yellowstone National Park, and 16 wolves and three packs on the Wind River Reservation. According to the report, at least 175 wolves in 27 packs reside in northwestern Wyoming’s trophy zone for wolves, and 26 wolves in five packs live in the predator zone and are not actively monitored. Wolves were confirmed to have killed 70 head of livestock (42 cattle, 27 sheep and 1 donkey) and one dog in Wyoming in 2019, and an additional 11 cattle and one donkey were confirmed as injured by wolves. Nineteen packs were involved in at least one livestock depredation. Federal and state agencies spent about $1.9 million on wolf monitoring and management in Wyoming in 2019, or about $6,170 per wolf roaming the state at the end of 2019. ..... (Click on the link above for the complete story.)

4/17/2020: California's Wyoming-Wolf Connection
(By Cat Urbigkit) The California Department of Fish & Wildlife (CDF&W) reports that the Lassen pack is the only known wolf pack in the state. Genetic testing indicates the breeding male wolf originated in the Oregon wolf population. The female wolf is not closely related to known Oregon wolves. It is suspected she dispersed from another part of the broader northern Rocky Mountain wolf population, and she has been found to have half-siblings in the Wyoming wolf population. Gray wolves in California are protected under the Federal Endangered Species Act and California Endangered Species Act..... (Click on the link above for the complete story.)

4/17/2020: Oregon has at least 158 wolves
(By Cat Urbigkit) State wildlife biologists counted 158 wolves in Oregon this past winter, a 15 percent increase over last year’s count of 137, according to the Oregon Wolf Conservation and Management 2019 Annual Report. This annual count is based on verified wolf evidence (like visual observations, tracks, and remote camera photographs) and is considered the minimum known wolf count, not an estimate of how many wolves are in Oregon. The actual number of wolves in Oregon is likely higher, as not all individuals present in the state are located during the winter count. Although the state’s annual wolf report doesn’t tally up all the cost of monitoring, management, and compensation, from the figures provided in the report, state agencies spent at least $875,000 on wolves in Oregon in 2019, or about $5,538 per known wolf. Wolves are protected as a special status game mammal in Oregon and were delisted statewide in 2015 under the Oregon Endangered Species Act (ESA). Wolves occurring west of Oregon Highways 395/78/95 continue to be federally listed as endangered under the federal ESA..... (Click on the link above for the complete story.)

3/17/2020: Wolf News Roundup 3/17/2020
(By Cat Urbigkit) Colorado Parks & Wildlife reports that a group of wolves has again been verified in Moffat County. Idaho Fish and Game has concluded wolf control actions done during February that removed 17 wolves in the Lolo elk zone north of Highway 12. Similar control actions have taken place in eight of the last nine years to reduce predation and improve elk survival in this herd that is well below elk management objectives. The control actions are taken where wolves are causing conflicts with people or domestic animals, or are a significant, measured factor in deer and elk population declines. While wildlife managers assert that wolves are biologically recovered, wolf advocates voice their opposition to reduced protection and delisting because the animals will be subjected to hunting and trapping..... (Click on the link above for the complete story.)

2/23/2020: Wolf News Roundup 2/23/2020
(By Cat Urbigkit) The Idaho Department of Fish & Game Commission has approved nine proposed modifications to wolf hunting and trapping seasons that extend wolf hunting opportunities, open more areas to wolf trapping and extend trapping seasons. The wolf advocacy groups pushing the ballot initiative to transplant wolves into Colorado have vastly higher contributions to their campaign than the groups opposed to the effort. In Minnesota, where wolves are federally protected, state officials have paid out an average of $135,000 annually for confirmed wolf depredations on livestock in the last decade...... (Click on the link above for the complete story.)

2/17/2020: Wolf News Roundup 2/17/2020
(By Cat Urbigkit) Proposed legislation that would have provided a compensation program for wolf depredation on livestock in Wyoming’s predator zone for wolves has died. The bill failed to get the needed votes for introduction in this budget session of the Wyoming Legislature. Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) biologists have received notification back from a genetics lab confirming that four scat samples collected near a scavenged elk carcass in Moffat County in early January came from wolves. This is the first official documentation of a pack of wolves in the state since the 1940s..... (Click on the link above for the complete story.)

2/7/2020: Wolf News Roundup 2/7/2020
(By Cat Urbigkit) A Representative in Washington has introduced a bill requiring closer monitoring of wolves in the state in order to to maximize nonlethal methods of dealing with problem wolves. His proposal, House Bill 2906, directs the state Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) to prioritize the use of radio collars as a tool to monitor wolves that have been in conflict with livestock and humans. Range riders working under a $352,000 contract from the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife to deter wolves from cattle in northeastern Washington are now facing theft charges. The state has filed theft charges against two of the range riders, alleging that while their time sheets showed they were on the job, their phone records indicate they were more than 100 miles away. OR-54, a female dispersing wolf approximately 3-4 years old, was found dead in Shasta County, California on February 5, 2020. OR-54 traveled widely in northeastern California, as well as into Oregon and Nevada. She was originally radio collared in Oregon and has been tracked since October 2017...... (Click on the link above for the complete story.)

1/29/2020: Wolf News Roundup 1/29/2020
(By Cat Urbigkit) Reports of an elk killed by wolves in northern Colorado’s Irish Canyon in early January have been confirmed as a wolf kill. It is one of several confirmed reports that wolves are already in Colorado – as that state’s residents prepare to vote on a wolf reintroduction program this fall. A video recording of two wolves filmed by elk hunters back in October has also surfaced..... (Click on the link above for the complete story.)

1/11/2020: Wolves roaming Colorado
(By Cat Urbigkit) Reports of an elk killed by wolves in northern Colorado’s Irish Canyon in early January have been confirmed as a wolf kill. It is one of several confirmed reports that wolves are already in Colorado – as that state’s residents prepare to vote on a wolf reintroduction program this fall. A video recording of two wolves filmed by elk hunters back in October has also surfaced..... (Click on the link above for the complete story.)

12/27/19: Wolf News Roundup 12/27/2019
(By Cat Urbigkit) Of the total quota of 35 wolves available for legal harvest in Wyoming’s wolf trophy zone this hunting season, 26 wolves have been killed by hunters as of Dec. 27. The Wyoming Game & Fish Department reports on its website that an additional 22 wolves have been killed so far this year in the remainder of Wyoming (where wolves are classified as predators), but that number is set to increase after the recent killing of five more wolves in response to repeated livestock depredations in Sublette County. With the Sept. 1 opening of the wolf hunting season in many of western Wyoming’s trophy wolf hunt areas, quotas have been reached in six hunt areas, so those areas are now closed. All wolf hunting areas in the trophy zone close at the end of the year. British Columbia officials plan to kill at least 80 percent of wolves in the central area of the province. The wolf cull is planned to protect the Tweedsmuir-Entiako caribou herd, which has declined by more than 10% annually for the last three years. Predation by wolves has been determined to be a key cause of caribou mortality. The Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife reports that three radio-collared wolves have left the state, with one dispersing into eastern Montana, one going to British Columbia, and another dispersing into Idaho.... (Click on the link above for the complete story.)

12/20/19: Wolf News Roundup 12/20/2019
(By Cat Urbigkit) In Wyoming, of the total quota of 35 wolves available for legal harvest in the state’s wolf trophy zone this hunting season, 26 wolves have been killed by hunters as of Dec. 19. An additional 22 wolves have been killed so far this year in the remainder of Wyoming, where wolves are classified as predators. With the Sept. 1 opening of the wolf hunting season in many of western Wyoming’s trophy wolf hunt areas, quotas have been reached in six hunt areas, so those areas are now closed. All wolf hunting areas in the trophy zone close at the end of the year. On Tuesday, November 19, 2019, two wolves from the Junction Butte Pack were fatally hit around sunset on the road between Tower Junction and the Northeast Entrance. A necropsy confirmed the black male and female pups died from a vehicle strike. ..... (Click on the link above for the complete story.)

12/08/19: Wolf News Roundup 12/08/2019
(By Cat Urbigkit) With the Sept. 1 opening of the wolf hunting season in many of western Wyoming’s trophy wolf hunt areas, quotas have been reached in six hunt areas, so those areas are now closed. Of the total quota of 35 wolves available for legal harvest in the state’s wolf trophy zone, 26 wolves have been killed by hunters as of Dec. 6. An additional 22 wolves have been killed so far this year in the remainder of Wyoming, where wolves are classified as predators. Earlier this fall, Washington Governor Jay Inslee sent a letter to Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife Director (WDFW) Kelly Susewind requesting that the wildlife department "significantly reduce" the number of wolves killed in control actions in response to livestock depredations. Washington has been embroiled in controversy over wolves, with many wolf advocates from the western side of the state (where there are few wolves) decrying lethal control of wolves in the eastern region (where the majority of the wolf population resides). Things got so heated that WDFW cancelled a series of public meetings to discuss revisions to the state wolf management plan because of fears of violence. Reporting by the Inlander reveal that the "multiple violent social media threats" came from wolf supporters, not anti-wolf extremists...... (Click on the link above for the complete story.)

2019 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2018 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2017 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2016 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2015 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2014 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2013 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2012 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2011 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2010 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2009 Wolf Watch Story Archive

2008 Wolf Watch Story Archive
2007/2006 Watch Wolf Story Archive


GENERAL INFO

General Info about wolves

LEGAL

Recovery Plan
Reintroduction
Wyoming Plan
Wyoming Lawsuit

Delisting

WOLF PACKS

Current Count
Pack History
Yellowstone Saturated

Wolves on the Ranch

Who to Call
Federal Rule on Control
Wolf Depredation Guide
Wyoming Depredation Guide
Montana Depredation Guide

WOLF PREDATION

Sublette County Kills
WY Depredation of Livestock
Depredation Research
Compensation

WOLF CONTROL

Sublette County
Wyoming
Rockies
Federal Rules
Reference

WOLVES IMPACTS

Impacts Underestimated

WOLVES & HUMANS

Interactions
Reports of Attacks
Deaths

WOLVES & DOGS

Wolves Kill Dogs
Wolf-Dog Conflicts
Hunting Dogs and Wolves
Canine Diseases

REFERENCES

Documents
Links

MAPS

Wolf Recovery Areas

PHOTOS

Wolf Pictures


LINKS

Government Agencies
Conservation Organizations
Education
Research

SPONSORS

Pinedale Online!
Pinedale Online!

For Sponsorship info please call: 307-360-7689,
E-mail for more information

 Home | General Info | Packs | Legal | Reference | Maps | Depredation | Wolves on the Ranch
Wolves and Humans | Wolves and Dogs | Wolf Impacts | Control | Photos | Links | About Cat

About Cat
Cat's Books
Paradise Sheep

Sponsorship

Got a news tip?
Submit photos, stories, links, tips or information.
Cat Urbigkit
c/o Pinedale Online!
PO Box 2250
Pinedale WY 82941


cat@pinedale.com
For permission to reprint Cat's articles and photos (one-time, non-exclusive) posted here, please contact Cat Urbigkit at Pinedale Online.Contact Cat or Pinedale Online for sponsorship info: 307-360-7689 or 307-276-5699, Fax: 307-276-5414, support@pinedaleonline.com
         

This Wolf page is a special feature of Pinedale Online! www.PinedaleOnline.com.Wolf header photo by National Park Service.