The Imnaha Pack – Pacific Wolf Coalition

akwa_imnaha_150101_160316 — Imnaha Pack range map, courtesy of ODFW.

The Imnaha Pack is no longer considered active.

The Imnaha pack was named after the Imnaha River. The original breeding female was B-300 who dispersed more than 100 miles from Idaho and was first visually observed in Oregon in 2008 after crossing the Snake River. She was collared in Oregon and became known as OR-2. She was also given the name “Sophie” as a result of a naming competition run by Oregon Wild.

Sophie is first known to have had a litter of pups in Oregon in 2009 with her mate, OR-4, who also dispersed to Oregon from Idaho. (OR-4 was first radio-collared in 2010). Some believe that Sophie and OR-4 traveled to Oregon together as a pair. Film captured in 2009 documents 10 pack members.

Three more pack members were identified in 2010. Conflict between the Imnaha pack and livestock result in the authorization of USDA/Wildlife Services to kill 2 uncollared pack members. 4 new pups are documented in 2010 and, OR-5, from the Imnaha pack’s first litter, disperses to Washington in winter at the age of 1.5 years.

In March 2011 a collared female yearling Imnaha pack member was found dead, and two Imnaha wolves are killed by the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife due to repeated livestock depredations. Footage captured in July 2011 by an ODFW employee shows a black pup traveling with the Imnaha pack’s alpha female (its mother). OR-3 & OR-9 dispersed from the pack at this time.

In September, 2011 OR-7 (male, 2.5 years old) left the Imnaha pack and was located in Little Lookout Mountain area, Baker County. December 29 – OR-7 enters California, becoming the first known wolf in California in nearly 100 years.

On Feb. 26, 2013 ODFW biologists radio-collared a new Imnaha Pack wolf (OR-17). By mid-summer, the signal of the radio-collared breeding female (OR-2 / Sophie) was not located, and she was not observed to be part of the pack at the end of the year. The pack produced 7 pups in 2013, but none were documented after late fall despite multiple observations of the pack. Two GPS radio-collars remained in the pack, on the breeding male (OR-4) and a subadult female.

The packs’ long-time breeding female (OR-2 / Sophie) was not with the pack in 2014. In her place a new breeding female (later radio-collared and dubbed OR-39) produced only one known pup and by year’s end no surviving pups were observed despite multiple observations of the pack. OR-39 has a discernible limp, likely from an injury that healed poorly, and she is given the moniker “Limpy.”

In 2015 two radio-collared male wolves dispersed and the breeding male’s (OR-4) collar failed during the year. Limited observations were made of the pack after reproduction was confirmed. The pack grew to 8 wolves.

During March of 2016, both OR-4 and OR-39 were captured and radio-collared and that same day a depredation was discovered in which they were implicated. A series of depredations followed and it was determined that OR-4 and OR-39, along with two yearling pups appeared to have split off from the remaining 4 members of the Imnaha pack.

AKWA_UnnamedWolves_160720 — *Range map courtesy of ODFW.*

On the afternoon of March 31, 2016, the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife aerially gunned down OR-4, OR-39 and the two yearlings.

Since the deaths of OR-4, OR-39 and their pups there have been 4 wolves seen in the Imnaha Pack range, but DNA testing has shown that they are unrelated to the Imnaha Pack. View the map (right) to see the range of the new wolves in the Imnaha and Snake River wildlife management units. While there are no longer any Imnaha wolves in their original pack territory, a number of Imnaha wolves are known to have dispersed to other parts of the state, such as OR-7 who is now the breeding male of the Rogue Pack, and a collared male who in 2019 became the breeding male of the Heppner Pack.

Pack Status: Designated in November 2009; no longer active.

Pack Members

Sophie (OR-2 / B-300): The original breeding female of Oregon’s Imnaha pack. She was originally from the Timberline pack in Idaho, where she was first collared and named B-300 in 2006. She then traveled more than 100 miles when she dispersed into Oregon and was first visually observed in Oregon in 2008 after having crossed the Snake River from Idaho. She was given a new radio collar in Oregon in 2009 and dubbed OR-2. Her radio collar stopped working in 2013 and she has not been seen since.

OR-4: Breeding male and co-founder, along with Sophie, of the Imnaha pack. He was the biggest wolf in Oregon, and was radio-collared 5 times (the most of any wolf in Oregon). On the afternoon of March 31, 2016, ODFW aerially gunned down OR-4, OR-39 and their two yearling pups after a series of depredations.

Born to OR-2 and OR-4:

OR-3: In 2011, OR-3 dispersed from the Imnaha Pack and, while his radio-collar was still working, was last detected northeast of Prineville in September of the same year. After several years of receiving no information on this wolf, he was rediscovered in July when a trail camera photograph confirmed his presence in northern Klamath County. Wolf advocates Rob Klavins and Wally Sykes had an encounter with OR-3 in 2010, and OR-3 has also been spotted via trail camera near Crater Lake. OR-3 was seen for a while around northern Klamath County, but then moved on to the Silver Lake wildlife management unit in Lake County, and paired up with OR-28 from the Mt Emily Pack. On June 22, 2016 OR-3 was photographed by trail camera with a wolf pup, the first known to be born to OR-3 and OR-28. On October 6th, 2016 OR-28 was found illegally killed in the Fremont-Winema National Forest near Summer Lake, Oregon.

OR-5: A gray female collared on February 13, 2010. She later dispersed from the Imnaha pack into Washington state. Tragically, OR-5 was killed by a trapper in the Idaho panhandle on the next-to last day of the state’s recreational wolf trapping season, March 30, 2013.

OR-7: Also named Journey through an international naming competition run by Oregon Wild, OR-7 was the first confirmed wolf in western Oregon since 1947, and the first in California since 1924. After OR-7 left his pack in northeastern Oregon in September 2011, he wandered more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) through Oregon and Northern California. He is known to have spent time in California for parts of each year between 2011-2014. By 2014, OR-7 had returned to the Rogue River watershed in the southern Cascade Range with a mate and established the Rogue Pack.

OR-8: This gray female of the Imnaha pack was collared on February 25, 2011 in Wallowa County, weighing in at 74 pounds and estimated to be about one-and- a-half years old. Sadly, her new collar emitted a mortality signal just days later on March 1, only five miles away from her release site. Lab work on OR-8’s body revealed a hemorrhage in her chest cavity which was likely related to her capture.

OR- 9: Though a grisly photo of OR-9 exists after he was killed at the hands of a poacher, there are no known photos of OR-9 alive. A gray male, OR-9 was collared on February 26, 2011 in the Grouse Creek region east of Joseph in Wallowa County. OR-9 weighed 90 pounds at the time of his capture, and was estimated to between one-and- a-half and two-and- a-half years old. He dispersed from the Imnaha pack and crossed the Brownlee Reservoir into Idaho, before being illegally shot to death on February 2, 2012. The poacher was not punished.

OR-17: In February 2013 OR-17 was incidentally caught in a trap set for coyotes. When wolves (or other endangered species) are accidentally caught in a trap, trappers are required to alert ODFW under Oregon Furbearer Regulations. In this case, the trapper followed the law and OR-17 was collared and released by ODFW in good health. She was a 76 lb. yearling. On March 2, 2014, after crossing the border into Idaho, she was shot and killed by a hunter as part of that state’s recreational hunt. She had only been out of Oregon for a week when she was shot.

OR-25: Radio collared May 20, 2014, OR-25 Dispersed towards southwestern Oregon. During his dispersal, OR25 traveled through the Columbia Basin, Southern Blue Mountains, and Northern and Central Cascade Mountains. From mid-December 2015 into spring of 2016, OR-25 has been crossing the border repeatedly into California, spending some of his time in parts of Klamath County in Oregon, and other parts in California’s Modoc and Lassen Counties.

OR-33: Black, subadult, male. In June 2016 he was spotted in the Grizzly Peak area near Ashland in Southern Oregon. Three livestock deaths in the area were attributed to him.

OR-39: Collared female with a pronounced limp, thought to be due to a leg injury that healed poorly. OR-39 became the breeding female for the Imnaha Pack after Sophie (OR-2) disappeared. She was killed by ODFW, along with the breeding male OR-4 and their two yearling pups in March, 2016 after a series of depredations attributed to them.