In the late 1990s, I was traveling across the Blue Mountains of Oregon with my wife, Mollie, and my children en route to Montana. Both Mollie and I had been involved in wolf restoration politics in Montana. At the time, there were no wolves in Oregon.
However, as we passed mile upon mile of rolling forested landscape, I commented to Mollie that, in my view, Oregon was almost a better place for wolf restoration than Montana.
In 1995 and several subsequent years, the reintroduction of wolves in the Central Idaho Wilderness Complex established viable wolf breeding packs in Idaho. I figured it was only a matter of time before Idaho wolves would make their way to Oregon.
The first known wolf to colonize Oregon from Idaho occurred in 2008, so my hunch was validated.
I’m pleased to report that, according to the Oregon Fish and Wildlife, as of this year, there are now 204 wolves in Oregon. So my intuition that Oregon would be fertile ground for wolf recovery was on target.
In 2000, I published a paper, The Potential For Wolf Recovery in Oregon, where I estimated that, based on prey, habitat availability, and other ecological factors at full recovery, Oregon could support up to 2000 wolves.
When I first started giving talks advocating for wolf recovery in Oregon, I had numerous naysayers suggest that Oregon had “too many” people for wolf recovery. Or not “enough wilderness” for wolves. All of these assumptions were wrong.
Part of my reasoning at the time was due to several factors. While overall there are more people in Oregon than in Montana, 86% of the human population is concentrated west of the Cascades, where the cities of Portland, Salem, Eugene, and Medford are located.
East of the Cascades, Oregon has a far lower human population density than western Montana, where wolves have successfully colonized.
Oregon has a high percentage of lower elevation public land, which can accommodate wolves and prey with reduced interactions with livestock operations.
Finally, Oregon has more wolf prey (elk and deer) than Montana.
My interest in wolves began as a child. I was always interested in predators, but it heightened after I attended the U of Montana in Missoula. My focus on the restoration of wolves in Montana was stimulated by several factors.
In 1977, while backpacking in the Great Bear Wilderness south of Glacier NP, I encountered a lone wolf on the trail. At the time, there were no breeding wolves in Montana, and the animal I saw was likely a dispersing individual from Canada. But that experience suggested that wild wolves from Canada could potentially colonize Montana.
My interest in wolves was further enhanced by a friendship I’d developed with Professor Bob Ream, who headed the University of Montana Wolf Ecology Project. Bob was my advisor during my undergraduate studies at the University of Montana Forestry School.
One of my college buddies, Mike Fairchild, worked under Ream as head field researcher for the Wolf Ecology Project. I frequently joined Mike in the field tracking wolves in Glacier National Park.
And during the 1970s, I spent a considerable amount of time in Alaska, where I frequently observed wolves in the wild.
Adding to this immersion in Montana wolf politics, Mollie did her Master’s degree under Ream at the U of Montana studying wolf den selection among recolonizing wolves in NW Montana, and later in the early 1990s worked in Yellowstone Park for Defenders of Wildlife, generating public support for wolf restoration.
At the time I wrote my paper, I proposed that there were three physiographic provinces of the state likely to support viable wolf populations: the Siskiyou Mountains, Blue Mountains, and the Cascade Range. Large public land holdings, low human population density, and large numbers of ungulate prey characterize all.
I also suggest that both the Coast Range and the isolated desert areas of SE Oregon might also support a few wolf packs.
So it was with great pleasure to learn that by 2024, Oregon had 25 packs of wolves, including 17 breeding pairs. There are likely more wolves in the state, and certainly that is what the Oregon livestock industry asserts.
As in other places with wolves, the main factor limiting wolf recovery is human-caused mortality. Wolves in eastern Oregon were delisted from federal endangered species protection, while those in western Oregon remain covered by the ESA.
However, there is no general wolf trapping and hunting season as in Idaho, Montana, or Wyoming. Wolves in Oregon can only be killed by authorized agencies or ranchers with a kill permit. In 2024, 26 Oregon wolves died, 22 were human-caused, mainly due to livestock conflicts.
Though ranchers scream about their livestock losses to predators, as with other states with wolves, the losses from predators, particularly wolves, are insignificant compared to other causes of mortality. In 2024, documented wolf-related livestock losses were 5 cows, 24 calves, and 62 sheep.
In addition to actual mortality, ranchers point out that the mere presence of wolves can reduce cattle weight gains, so even in the absence of actual predation, there are still some economic costs.
To partially compensate ranchers for these losses, the Oregon Department of Agriculture awarded $790,000 to livestock producers.
The good news is that wolves are beginning to repopulate western Oregon. As of 2024, there were 7 breeding pairs in that region of the state. I think that ultimately, western Oregon might support more wolves than lightly populated northwest Oregon.
It might seem counter-intuitive to suggest that wolves could repopulate the portion of Oregon with the greatest human population, but the mere presence of humans doesn’t necessarily negate wolf recovery. Plus most livestock producers in this portion of the state have small operations where animals are more closely monitored, limiting potential wolf predation losses.
After all, there are more wolves (3,300) in Italy than in Wyoming, even though Italy’s human population is nearly 60 million, while Wyoming has less than half a million residents.
While Oregon hasn’t reached the 2000 animals I suggested it could potentially support at full carrying capacity, it is slowly making progress towards that end. Very likely, it will never reach its full ecological potential due to politics and other human-related factors, but could Oregon host 1000 wolves?
Perhaps, given another few decades, the sight and sound of wolves in Oregon might be as common as those in Yellowstone National Park.
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