Southeast WA wolf pack gets reprieve from killings

The Couse wolf pack won’t be targeted for repeated lethal attacks on cattle near Anatone, Washington, this spring.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Kelly Susewind declined to order the lethal removal of members of the pack to serve as a deterrent. The Couse pack has been blamed for killing two calves and one adult cow, all belonging to one rancher, since March 17 and is suspected of injuring a third calf earlier in the year.

But the pack has not escaped unscathed. On April 3, a ranch employee shot and killed a wolf that was attacking livestock. According to the agency, an investigation into the incident that it described as “standard protocol” is underway.

Washington law allows owners of domestic animals – or their employees, agents or immediate family members – to defend an animal being attacked by wolves by killing a single wolf.

The law only applies to areas of the state where wolves are not protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. Wolves in the eastern third of the state are not federally protected.

Wildlife managers from the agency also plan to assess the impact of the “caught-in-the-act” killing on the pack that roams the timbered and grassy ridges connecting the Blue Mountains to the Snake and Grande Ronde rivers.

The pack has preyed on cattle several times since it formed in 2023.