Eastern Oregon wolves again star in video, this time with youngsters

They walk in single file -- black- and gray-coated wolves gliding through a snowy open forest east of Joseph in Wallowa County. 

The remarkable video, captured last week by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, is further evidence that wolves are re-establishing themselves in northeast Oregon. 

The existence of the pack wasn't a surprise. Fish and Wild scientists have been monitoring it since June 2008 and even know a bit about the individual wolves. But the number -- at least 10 wolves are seen in the video -- surprised even veteran wolf watchers. 

"ODFW has been regularly monitoring this pack but, until this video was taken, we only had evidence of a minimum of three adults and three pups making up the pack," said Russ Morgan, the agency's wolf coordinator. "Pups can be difficult to distinguish at this distance, but it appears there may be as many as six pups in the video." 

The pack leader is B-300, an alpha female that made her public debut in a spectacular video filmed by wildlife agents from an airplane in January 2008. Seen loping across a snow field, B-300 was the emblem of the return of wolves to Oregon. 

Like many Oregon residents, B-300 was a transplant -- a radio collar was put on her in August 2006 northeast of Boise and it tracked her as she left Idaho's Timberline Pack and moved into the Wallowa Mountains. 

Gray wolves are protected by the State Endangered Species Act and by the Federal Endangered Species Act west of Highways 398/78/95. 

Wolves were wiped out in Oregon in the mid-1940s. The first evidence of a pack making its home in the state was in July 2008.

Last September, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services killed two wolves responsible for livestock depredation in the Keating Valley of Baker County.

The state wildlife agency will continue to monitor the pack and another group in the Wenaha Unit in Wallowa County to count their pups next month. For a pack to be defined as a "breeding pair," an important step in wolf conservation, it must produce at least two pups that survive to Dec. 31 of the year of their birth. 

Under Oregon's wolf conservation and management plan, the Fish and Wildlife Commission will consider delisting wolves from the state endangered species list when four breeding pairs for three consecutive years are documented. 

Wolf litters average five pups, although more is not uncommon. 

The 90 second video seems to confirm that. 

The camera watches the young wolves from the other side of a canyon as they step through the snow, under a tall fir, then around a corner and out of sight. Near the end, one of the wolves lunges up the slope while the others stick to a lower path. 

Click here to see the video