Feds offer $50K to solve wolf-killing mystery

By Michael Doyle | 02/20/2024 04:18 PM EST

The Fish and Wildlife Service offered the reward for the killing of three wolves in Oregon.

A gray wolf surrounded by snow-covered trees.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has offered a reward for information about the killing of three wolves in Oregon. Tracy Brooks/Fish and Wildlife Service/Flickr

The killing of three federally protected gray wolves in southern Oregon has drawn a $50,000 reward offer from the Fish and Wildlife Service, even as the agency moves at an uncertain pace toward a bigger Endangered Species Act decision about the iconic canine.

According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, the tracking collars of two wolves showed what the FWS termed a “mortality signal” last Dec. 29.

Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife Division troopers and a biologist from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife tracked the signals to an area east of the town of Bly. The region is considered an “area of known wolf activity.”

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The law enforcement officers and the scientist reported finding two dead collared wolves and one dead wolf without a collar. The collared wolves were from what is called the Gearhart Mountain Pack.

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