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Feds offer $50,000 reward after 3 endangered gray wolves found dead in Oregon
A federal agency is offering a $50,000 reward for information about the deaths of three endangered gray wolves from the same pack in southern Oregon.
The collars from two gray wolves sent a mortality signal Dec. 29. State wildlife officials responded and found three dead wolves, two with collars and one without, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement.
The collared wolves were an adult breeding female and a subadult from the Gearhart Mountain Pack. The other wolf killed was also a subadult.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said it is aware of seven wolves remaining in the pack, including a breeding male.
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Officials did not indicate in the statement how the wolves died. A phone message left Saturday seeking more information was not immediately returned.
Gray wolves are protected by federal law under the Endangered Species Act. It is illegal to hurt or kill them. The reward is for information leading to an arrest, criminal conviction or fine.
In Oregon, gray wolves are listed as endangered in the western two-thirds of the state.
The three wolves were killed east of Bly in southern Oregon’s Klamath County, or about 310 miles southeast of Portland. They were an area that wolves are known to inhabit, stretching across Klamath and Lake counties, just north of the Oregon-California border.
In December, a settlement approved by a federal court ruled the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must draft a new recovery plan for gray wolves listed under the Endangered Species Act within two years. The plan must promote the conservation of the species.
In August, researchers identified a new pack of endangered gray wolves in California. The new pack was found in Central California’s Tulare County – about 200 miles from the nearest pack in Northern California.
$6.5K reward after killing of desert bighorn sheep in Arizona
Meanwhile, wildlife officials are investigating the illegal killing of a desert bighorn sheep in southwest Arizona and teaming up with local hunting and conservation groups to post a $6,500 reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of anyone responsible.
The Arizona Game and Fish Department said Friday the carcass of the adult ram was found not far from a farm field near Gila Bend, about 70 miles southwest of Phoenix. It apparently had been shot and left for dead around the weekend of Jan. 13, investigators said.
The Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society, Arizona Deer Association and Arizona Antelope Foundation are contributing a combined $6,000 to the reward and the state department’s Operation Game Thief another $500, authorities said.
“There is no justifiable reason to poach an animal during a closed season and leave it to waste. Poachers are not hunters or sportsmen; they are criminals who are stealing from the residents of Arizona,” said Travis Clarkson, a wildlife manager in the department’s Yuma region.
“Due to the location of the crime scene, a hunter, an off-highway vehicle user, or a field worker near the area may have seen something or heard something that may assist officers in solving this case,” he said.
Anyone with information is encouraged to call the Operation Game Thief Hotline toll-free at 1-800-352-0700.
A state judge on Monday struck down Wyoming’s overall ban on abortion and its first-in-the-nation explicit prohibition on the use of medication to end pregnancy in line with voters in yet more states voicing support for abortion rights.
Since 2022, Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens has ruled consistently three times to block the laws while they were disputed in court.
The decision marks another victory for abortion rights advocates after voters in seven states passed measures in support of access.
One Wyoming law that Owens said violated women’s rights under the state constitution bans abortion except to protect a pregnant woman’s life or in cases involving rape and incest. The other made Wyoming the only state to explicitly ban abortion pills, though other states have instituted de facto bans on the medication by broadly prohibiting abortion.
The laws were challenged by four women, including two obstetricians, and two nonprofit organizations. One of the groups, Wellspring Health Access, opened as the state’s first full-service abortion clinic in years in April 2023 following an arson attack in 2022.
“This is a wonderful day for the citizens of Wyoming — and women everywhere who should have control over their own bodies,” Wellspring Health Access President Julie Burkhart said in a statement.
NATALIE BEHRING / Getty Images
The recent elections saw voters in Missouri clear the way to undo one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans in a series of victories for abortion rights advocates. Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota, meanwhile, defeated similar constitutional amendments, leaving bans in place.
Abortion rights amendments also passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland and Montana. Nevada voters also approved an amendment in support of abortion rights, but they’ll need to pass it again it 2026 for it to take effect. Another that bans discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy outcomes” prevailed in New York.
The abortion landscape underwent a seismic shift in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a ruling that ended a nationwide right to abortion and cleared the way for bans to take effect in most Republican-controlled states.
Currently, 13 states are enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, and four have bans that kick in at or about six weeks into pregnancy — often before women realize they’re pregnant.
Nearly every ban has been challenged with a lawsuit. Courts have blocked enforcement of some restrictions, including bans throughout pregnancy in Utah and Wyoming. Judges struck down bans in Georgia and North Dakota in September 2024. Georgia’s Supreme Court ruled the next month that the ban there can be enforced while it considers the case.
In the Wyoming case, the women and nonprofits who challenged the laws argued that the bans stood to harm their health, well-being and livelihoods, claims disputed by attorneys for the state. They also argued the bans violated a 2012 state constitutional amendment saying competent Wyoming residents have a right to make their own health care decisions.
As she had done with previous rulings, Owens found merit in both arguments. The abortion bans “will undermine the integrity of the medical profession by hamstringing the ability of physicians to provide evidence-based medicine to their patients,” Owens ruled.
The abortion laws impede the fundamental right of women to make health care decisions for an entire class of people — those who are pregnant — in violation of the constitutional amendment, Owens ruled.
Wyoming voters approved the amendment amid fears of government overreach following approval of the federal Affordable Care Act and its initial requirements for people to have health insurance.
Attorneys for the state argued that health care, under the amendment, didn’t include abortion. Republican Gov. Mark Gordon, whose administration has defended the laws passed in 2022 and 2023, did not immediately return an email message Monday seeking comment.
Both sides wanted Owens to rule on the lawsuit challenging the abortion bans rather than allow it to go to trial in the spring. A three-day bench trial before Owens was previously set, but won’t be necessary with this ruling.
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