It\u2019s only mentioned in a single sentence in the 12-page report. <\/p>\n
The report reveals Wildlife Services \u2013 a program under the federal U.S. Department of Agriculture \u2013 was supposed to be removing coyotes when it instead killed the wolves. At least one of the wolves was a collared male that had traveled from Northern California to Oregon. <\/p>\n
![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/V2QKOTK6NBCU7JEDF4PIXLPSJI.jpg\")
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FILE – Two gray wolves were accidentally killed by federal officials last summer, according to a report issued Friday. This February 2021 photo, provided by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, shows a different Oregon-born gray wolf. <\/p>\n
California Department of Fish and Wildlife \/ AP<\/p>\n
A lot of details are still unclear. <\/p>\n
Wildlife conservation groups are skeptical that a federal agency whose focus is to kill wild animals could have made such a mistake. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s utterly unacceptable that a federal employee or contractor would not have enough basic wildlife identification knowledge to know the difference between a wolf and a coyote,\u201d said Bethany Cotton, the conservation director at Cascadia Wildlands, an Oregon-based conservation nonprofit. \u201cThey\u2019re significantly different in size and physical appearance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wolves, especially males, are significantly larger than coyotes, weighing around 70-100 pounds, whereas coyotes only weigh at roughly 25-50 pounds. <\/p>\n
Tanya Espinosa, a public affairs specialist at the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, confirmed that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office of law enforcement is actively conducting an investigation. Espinosa declined to share more details about the investigation or whether it relates to the wolves killed in Southern Oregon. <\/p>\n
A spokesperson with U.S. Fish and Wildlife declined to comment. <\/p>\n
Michelle Dennehy, a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, told OPB that CA102, a collared 2-year-old male wolf that had dispersed from the Beyem Seyo pack in Northern California, was killed July 31, 2025. <\/p>\n
Last summer, CA102 killed at least two calves and injured one, all in Klamath County, according to ODFW wolf-livestock investigation<\/a> records. <\/p>\n Because gray wolves in the western two-thirds of Oregon are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act<\/a>, it\u2019s up to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to manage and investigate conflicts between wolves, livestock and wolf mortalities, Dennehy said. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen there is a human-caused wolf mortality in areas of the state where wolves are federally protected, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Law Enforcement are the lead and handle the investigation including release of information,\u201d Dennehy said in an email. <\/p>\n Killing an animal listed as an endangered species is both a federal and state crime. <\/p>\n Wildlife Services has long been a controversial<\/a> and often secretive program under the umbrella of the USDA. The agency kills hundreds of thousands of wild animals a year across the nation. <\/p>\n In Oregon, Wildlife Services killed or removed<\/a> 155,958 wild animals in 2023, according to the latest publicly available data. Coyotes are, by far, the animals Wildlife Services most frequently killed in the state, and across much of the Western U.S. <\/p>\n Conservation groups have long criticized the agency for killing wild animals without presenting enough evidence that the animal posed a risk or threat to livestock, crops or people. <\/p>\n Some investigations have found the agency has in the past accidentally killed federally protected wild animals, or killed native animals that hadn\u2019t injured or posed any risk to livestock.<\/p>\n