Troubled Couse wolf pack in southeast WA under scrutiny

A ranch hand shot and killed a wolf attacking cattle near Anatone on Friday and the state is considering removing more wolves there.

The incident follows a recent string of lethal attacks on livestock by the troubled Couse pack that formed in 2023 and roams the timbered and grassy ridges connecting the Blue Mountains to the Snake and Grande Ronde rivers.

In 2023, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife killed two members of the pack in an effort to stop repeated attacks on livestock. A year later, a ranch hand shot and killed a wolf chasing cattle. The fish and wildlife agency considered killing more wolves at the time but chose not to and instead hoped the killing by the ranch employee would prove sufficient to disrupt the pack’s pattern of preying on cattle.

It did not. By September, the pack resumed its targeting of livestock, prompting department Director Kelly Susewind to authorize agency sharpshooters to kill one member of the pack. That order expired before agency members could carry it out. Weeks later the pack returned and injured another calf. The agency declined to issue a kill order for that attack because the injuries were not immediately discovered and wildlife managers determined too much time had passed to make lethal removal serve as a deterrent.

The pack largely stayed out of trouble in 2025. But between March 17 and Friday, the pack killed two calves and one adult cow and is suspected of killing a third calf, according to the agency. All of the cattle belonged to a single producer. Investigators also determined the Couse pack was likely responsible for injuring a yearling calf belonging to another producer in February.

Jay Holzmiller, a rancher who is a neighbor to the affected producer, said Anatone is overlapped by the Couse and Tucannon packs. He wants the agency he once oversaw as a member of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission to take action.

“With the prices of cattle at the moment, it’s a huge amount of money they are talking about for that one producer,” he said. “We need to be able to get the ranchers some relief sooner than later on these issues.”

Wolves in the eastern third of Washington are protected by state law but are not listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.