The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife plans to kill up to six wolves from a pack that has killed or injured cattle several times recently in Baker and Union counties.

That’s reasonable.

But it might not be enough.

The Black Pines Pack, which numbers at least 12 wolves, according to ODFW, isn’t the only pack living in the area spanning parts of the two counties.

The Frazier Mountain Pack’s range overlaps with the Black Pines Pack.

The Black Pines Pack killed a 5-month-old calf in the Beagle Creek area near Medical Springs, in southern Union County, according to a Nov. 17 investigation by ODFW biologists.

Biologists deemed it probable that wolves from that pack also recently injured an 8-month-old calf in the Clover Creek area north of Keating Valley, about 15 miles east of Baker City.

Wolves from that pack killed one yearling cow and injured another, both in the Keating Valley, earlier in November.

A third group of wolves, the Keating Pack, killed eight sheep and injured two others in the Keating Valley in October. Keating wolves have also attacked cattle.

With three wolf packs in the same area with large herds of cattle and sheep, ODFW officials need to consider whether that’s a sustainable situation.

Under the tenets of the state’s wolf management plan, ODFW can, after these sorts of chronic depredations, authorize the killing of a certain number of wolves.

But that costs money.

And although Oregon, through its counties, has a system by which livestock owners can apply for financial compensation for losses due to wolves, the program doesn’t always make ranchers whole.

There is reason to wonder, too, whether killing six wolves from the Black Pines Pack will do anything but temporarily curb the depredations.

That pack had just six wolves at the end of 2022, according to ODFW. But with the birth of at least five pups in the spring of 2023, the pack nearly doubled its size in less than a year. The pack has also attacked livestock over a relatively wide swath, ranging from the High Valley area near Cove to Keating Valley.

ODFW shouldn’t wantonly slaughter wolves. But when a pack or packs show a propensity for attacking livestock, the agency has both an obligation, and a statutory authority, to try to reduce the loss of livestock.

The situation in this area, with three packs overlapping, might well require additional kill permits.