A 1-year-old Oregon male wolf was struck and killed by a vehicle Tuesday morning on Oregon 138, about 30 miles north of Crater Lake.
The gray wolf, known as OR 143, had “lost its wariness of people and did not have normal wolf behaviors,” said Meghan Dugan, a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
“It did not react to people’s voices, honking horns, traffic noise or vehicle noise,” Dugan said Wednesday. “Our biologist believes that the loss of wariness was because people were feeding it.”
OR 143 was born in the spring of 2022 and was one of 178 wolves documented by state wildlife officials in Oregon in 2022 – only three more than the year before. Wildlife officials documented 20 wolf deaths last year.
People killed 17 of the wolves – including seven illegally, while the rest died naturally, according to an annual wolf conservation report by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Environmental groups are worried that a high number of wolf deaths in the past two years is affecting the recovery of wolf populations in the state.
Poaching has been on the rise in recent years, straining the population even further.
