BAKER CITY — A young, lone male wolf has been venturing into the eastern part of Baker Valley, near the airport, and feeding on the carcasses of two cows over the past several days.

Brian Ratliff worries that the wolf, which was born in the spring of 2022 in the Lookout Mountain area, might seek fresher meat when the carrion is no longer available.

“If we can nip this in the bud,” Ratliff, district wildlife biologist at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife office in Baker City, said. “He hasn’t attacked any livestock, but my concern is that he will.”

The wolf, one of the last litter of pups born to the former Lookout Mountain Pack in southeastern Baker County, was trapped in January of this year and fitted with a GPS collar that allows biologists to monitor its movements.

The Lookout Mountain Pack no longer exists, as both its breeding male and female are dead. The remnants of the pack are four pups born in spring 2022, and a wolf born the previous spring, Ratliff said.

Three of those pups, and the nearly 2-year-old wolf, all have tracking collars.

The wolf that has been feeding on carcasses in Baker Valley weighed about 75 pounds when it was trapped and collared. The wolf has black fur.

Ratliff said that when the wolf first came into Baker Valley on Thursday, March 9, he notified landowners whose properties the wolf crossed.

Initially it wasn’t clear why the wolf had moved into the valley, albeit only at night, according to GPS data, Ratliff said.

There haven’t been any reports of livestock being attacked.

But Ratliff said he learned, after talking to two property owners and comparing GPS data, that the wolf had been feeding on cow carcasses.

He said he has talked with the property owners, one of whom has a dead horse, and they are working to bury the carcasses.

Ratliff said wolves can smell carcasses from more than a mile away, and unburied cattle have attracted wolves in other parts of the county in past years.

He said he hazed the lone wolf twice while on helicopter flights to count deer over the past few days.

But the wolf has continued to return to the carcasses at night.

“He does not want to leave,” Ratliff said. “It’s not a good spot (for a wolf).”

Ratliff said the wolf has moved through pastures with cows and newborn calves, and also passed a sheep pen with baby lambs, but apparently the wolf was intent on feeding on the carcasses.

Ideally, when the carcasses are buried, the wolf will move elsewhere, Ratliff said, but with calves and lambs in the valley, he’s concerned the wolf will instead start preying on livestock.

Prior to coming to Baker Valley, the wolf had “been all over the place,” Ratliff said, including north of Halfway.

Ratliff said he’s optimistic about a project to create a carcass composting operation at Baker Sanitary Service’s landfill that would help ranchers dispose of dead animals.

That composting service could start late this year, he said.