OR-7 Has Become a Celebrity Wolf

OR-7 has become a celebrity wolf.

OR-7, the “wandering wolf” of Oregon has covered almost 730 miles searching for a mate and a new wolf pack.

In November of last year I touched on the Grey Wolf in an article dealing with the state of Idaho’s decision to make it legal to hunt a restricted amount of grey wolves.

The government put wolves on the endangered species list in 1976. Around  the same time Yellowstone National Park as well as states from the Rocky Mountain regions in the mid 90′s added the wolf as well.

This led the wolves population to swell leading them to spread out to regions such as Idaho.

Because of the protected status the wolves spread to Oregon.  The first evidence of which appeared in 2007 in a region known as The Eagle Cap Wilderness.

Now that number in Oregon is estimated at around 1700.

The aim of the Endangered Species act worked well in the case of the grey wolf. Their numbers have grown over 1700, well over the goals of the 1970′s endangered species act.

This population explosion forces other aggressive males in the pack to branch off, creating new wolf packs of their own.  In this process they inevitably brush shoulders with humans ending up in loss of livestock for ranchers.

OR-7 should be in danger but is not because of his notoriety world-wide.

In the U.K. the “Daily Mail” stated that OR-7 “captured the heart of the American public”.  This notoriety and publicity would not have been possible if not for the tracking collar that was fitted on him when he was a 90-pound two-year old.  He is surely much bigger now.

The environmentalist group, “Oregon Wild”, has started a contest among school children to give OR-7 a name to engender the belief that wolves are good for the ecosystem.

The belief among conservationists is that wolves don’t pose a threat to human beings at all if humans develop an understanding of the wolves’  patterns of behavior.

Environmentalists also see the wolf’s introduction to the area as healthy for the ecosystem because it keeps deer and elk on the move.

Ranchers know full well that the wolf and his offspring will very likely kill their livestock and big game herds hurting the local economies of the region.

Mr. Dennehy, of Oregon’s Department of Fish and Wildlife,  has a more guarded view of the animal knowing that “wolves have attacked and killed people in Canada and Alaska”.  He goes on to say, “It is extremely rare and has never happened in the Rocky Mountain states, but we advise people to keep your distance from wolves and any wild animals.”

Google search results show that he’s being talked about on more than 300 websites as well as being picked up in News Publications in Finland, Austria, Taiwan, Sweden, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and Argentina.

To complicate things further the undergrowth in western oregon is extremely thick making a perfect haven for wolves to hide from hunters.  This makes hunting the wolves extremely difficult in the future.

Tags: Celebrity Wolf, Endangered Animals, Environmentalist Groups, Fish and Wildlife Service, Hunting, OR-7