Washington state’s department of Fish and Wildlife will kill members of a wolf pack that is causing problems for livestock in Stevens County.
Since 2015, the Smackout pack has killed three calves and injured three others in the Northeast corner of Washington, where more than 80 percent of the state’s wolf population resides.
A similar situation played out last summer, after the 11-member Profanity Peak wolf pack repeatedly preyed upon cattle in the region. State staff killed seven of those wolves by the end of last year.
The state’s policy allows for the lethal removal of wolves “if they prey on livestock three times in a 30-day period or four times in a 10-month period.” That policy was revised over the last year by the state’s 18-member Wolf Advisory Group.
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Wolf Policy Lead Donny Martorello said in a press release that the purpose of lethal removal is “to change the [wolf] pack’s behavior… [by] incrementally removing wolves and assessing the results.”
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