According the Seattle Times, a pack of wolves has been established west of the Cascade Range:
Western Washington has its first wolf pack in decades, an indication that wolf recovery is on track and a sign that the canines are expanding their range in a healthier ecosystem, wildlife officials say.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) announced Thursday that biologists had documented a pack of the animals living in Skagit County, west of the Cascade crest.
A male wolf, which had been captured in the county and given a radio collar in 2017, was joined this winter by a female wolf, according to according to wildlife officials.
Biologists named the pair the Diobsud Creek Pack. The two have been spending their time near Diobsud Creek, in an area south of Baker Lake and north of Highway 20 near the town of Marblemount.
These wolves are moving into what most Easterners think of as classic Washington State with big wet forests and rumors of sasquatch behind every bush.
The article points to a real political and cultural divide in Washington. The eastern part of the state is very much ranching country, and wolves filling in from Idaho and British Columbia are not celebrated where livelihoods are dependent upon cattle prices and elk outfitting fees. This is the “Red Washington.”
Now, the wolves are inching closer to the “Blue Washington,” where they will likely cause some conflicts, and there will be less romanticism about living wolves.
However, the wolves certainly do deserve to be there, and as they become established in the forests near the Pacific Coast, there will be growing pains.
But it is a chance to see what wolves will do in these ecosystems. As they move towards the coast, will they begin to take up a littoral lifestyle as those in coastal British Columbia have?
Wolf “self-reintroduction” is going to be an interesting story in next couple of decades. Politically, it is impossible for us to go all the way back to wolf eradication as a federal policy, but there are forces that would like to get as near to that policy as possible. However, no state wants to the wolf to go back on the Endangered Species List, simply because the state loses virtually all control over the species once that happens.
So humans and wolves are still working it out, and the wolves keep spreading back into their former range.
