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Wolves are again repopulating Washington, according to Conservation Northwest, an environmentalist group which has installed remote-operated automatic cameras in upper central Washington's Okanogan County. The camera snapped up photos of a wolf pack.
Also, a team from Washington's Department of Fish and Wildlife captured and radio-collared two adult wolves, which apparently originated from the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta. The wolf pack, dubbed the “Lookout Pack” by agency scientists, is the first documented wolf pack in Washington State since the 1930s, according to an article on Conservation Northwest's web page.
The gray wolf or timber wolf, Canis lupus, is the largest wild member of the Canidae family, weighing in at around 70–150 pounds. Overall across the world, the wolf is classified as being of least concern for extinction, as categorized by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).
The Federal Endangered Species Act protection of the gray wolves was lifted in late March in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, the three states thus gaining full management of the estimated 1,500 animals. It appears that when the officials listed the wolves as endangered in 1973, when the species was almost extinct, they did not expect them to breed so rapidly.
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