Camera captures wolves killing lambs in Oregon

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A motion-detector camera has photographed two wolves killing lambs on a ranch in Eastern Oregon — the first documented wolf attack on livestock in Oregon since they started moving into the state in 1999. Baker City-area sheep rancher Curt Jacobs said Wednesday his family — third generation sheep ranchers — had been moving ewes and lambs from the ranch compound, where they had been brought in for lambing, out to pasture last week. When his brother and nephew went out to gather a band to load into trucks Friday morning, they found more than a dozen lambs penned near the house had been driven through the fence and killed. Only a few had been eaten. They saw tracks in the mud around the dead lambs included toenails. They figured it was wolves and called the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Wolf coordinator Russ Morgan mounted four motion-detector cameras on fence posts in hopes of catching the wolves walking by and looking in. Some carcasses were put out to attract the wolves. Last week Monday morning, Jacobs, 52, found the wolves had come back and killed more lambs. One of the cameras captured a photo of two wolves looking right at it, with dead lambs at their feet. The attack is likely to revive the contentious debate over whether ranchers should be allowed to shoot wolves on sight. Wolves were hunted out of existence in Oregon in the early 20th century, but have been moving back into the state from Idaho, where packs were re-established in the 1990s. They are currently protected as state and federal endangered species in Oregon. Jacobs said photos of the wolves and their tracks will go into his claim for $7,300 in compensation from Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation group supporting the return of wolves to Oregon. In all he had 23 lambs killed, and others too injured to be sold. “In all the years I’ve been around here, I saw one live cougar,” he said. “I just don’t want ‘em eating my paycheck.”