LA GRANDE – A 3-year-old male wolf from Wallowa County’s Imnaha pack has migrated to the Fossil area in Wheeler County.

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife workers using radio telemetry located the wolf southeast of Fossil after a citizen got a photo of the wolf on a trail camera in the west Blue Mountains. The wolf, dubbed OR-3 because he was the third Oregon wolf fitted with a radio collar, had last been seen north of Wallowa on May 10.

The wolf was one of several from the pack that have dispersed in recent months. Young wolves naturally leave their pack and move to new areas.

OR-3 is now west of the Hwy 395-78-95 boundary, in the part of the state where wolves are protected by the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA), in addition to Oregon’s ESA. ODFW said only time will tell if OR-3 stays in the Fossil area, moves on or even goes back to Wallowa County.

A second collared male wolf, 2-year-old OR-9, swam across the Brownlee Reservoir into Idaho on July 18. ODFW notified wildlife managers in Idaho about his presence.

In all, three wolves are known to have dispersed from the Imnaha pack. OR-5 went to Washington state last winter when she was 1-1/2 years old.

Other uncollared members of the Imnaha pack may have dispersed with the radio-collared wolves or gone their own way. The latest observations and data suggest the Imnaha pack now has four adult wolves (three of them collared), plus a new pup documented this year.

“Wolf packs are dynamic and rarely stay the same size over time,” noted Russ Morgan, ODFW wolf coordinator. “A pack can be healthy despite these natural fluctuations in numbers, as long as a breeding pair of wolves, the alpha male and female, is maintained.”

ODFW is continuing to monitor a second pack in Wallowa County and try to collar some of the wolves. This summer, trail cameras captured images of four adult wolves from the Wenaha pack travelling in the Wenaha unit of the northern Blue Mountains area. No pups were seen on the footage.