14 DAY TRIAL // A few days back, we reported on how a farmer complained about a pack of wolves that constantly attacked and killed his cattle in order to feed on them.
In the aftermath of these complaints, high officials in the Washington state decided to lend a helping hand to the farmer and agreed that the animals must be killed.
Although most people opposed this decision, recent news on this topic informs us that all of the six wolves were finally tracked down and shot.
Sources report that, in order to locate the animals, wildlife officials caught the alpha wolf and put a tracker on it. Later on, when the wolf returned to its pack, it proved to be fairly easy to locate and kill them all at once.
More precisely, the GPS collar fitted on the alpha wolf allowed marksmen (i.e. people who are extremely skilled at shooting from a distance) to follow the animals from a helicopter and gun them down while they were probably trying to make an escape.
It may be true that this particular pack of wolves had fed on as many as 17 calves until being killed, yet the fact remains that these cattle were grazing on public land, which is why several conservationists argue that the measures taken against these animals were drastic and uncalled for to say the least.
Interestingly enough, while the director of Washington's Department of Fish & Wildlife claims that there simply wasn't any other way to end the animals' attacks on cattle, the chair of the Washington State Senate maintains that this decision was in fact a “serious failure.”
Commenting on these recent events, one wolf advocate in charge of managing the Northern Lights Wildlife Wolf Center said as follows: “Killing the species off again It's just barbaric. It just shows we are still set back in the early 1900s.”
An online petition intended to prevent such killings from occurring again in the future has been launched by conservationists, and those wishing to sign it can do so here.