Wildlife officials have confirmed that a fifth radio-collared gray wolf has made its way to Klamath County.
The 2-year-old male wolf, designated OR-33, dispersed from the northeastern Oregon Imnaha Pack in January.
Tom Collom, the district biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) Klamath Falls office, said OR-33 has been traversing land west of Swan Lake Valley, between Klamath Falls and Dairy, for about 10 days.
Collom said the public has reported sightings of the wolf to ODFW. The agency conducted an aerial survey from a helicopter and confirmed the wolf is traveling by itself.
No depredation reports
“We’ve been in contact with landowners of properties he’s been in the vicinity of in North Poe Valley and the Swan Lake area,” Collom said. “We are trying to be transparent, letting livestock producers know when he’s in the area. We’ve had no reports of depredation issues.”
Collom said OR-33 got into a couple cow carcasses on private property and the landowners have since buried the remains.
Wildlife officials trapped and fit OR-33 with a GPS radio collar last February, when he was still a member of the Imnaha Pack.
The Imnaha Pack is the the same pack wolves OR-7 and OR-25 dispersed from. Collom said after leaving the pack, OR-33 traveled west into the Columbia River Gorge before moving south into the Ochoco Mountains, east of Prineville, and moving through the desert toward Fort Rock Valley.
OR-33 continued traveling south, on the east side of Crescent and Chemult, before landing in southern Klamath County.
Collom said OR-33 took a similar path to OR-7 and OR-25. OR-33’s collar is programmed to send location signals twice per day, but officials have only been receiving data once every two days or so.
Source: New wolf makes Klamath its territory | Local News | heraldandnews.com