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Three confirmed cattle attacks in OR-7's territory A remote camera captured this photo of OR-7 on May 3, 2014, in eastern Jackson County. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photo Monday Oct 10, 2016 at 3:53 PM Oct 10, 2016 at 5:10 PM Mark Freeman Mail Tribune @MTwriterFreeman Wolves killed two calves and wounded a third over a four-day period last week in a portion of western Klamath County known to be frequented by gray wolf OR-7 and his Rogue Pack, though there is no definitive proof that his pack did the killing, authorities said.  OR-7 and his pack had not been associated with any livestock deaths until now, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist John Stephenson said today that even if the federally protected wolves were proven to be linked to these cases, the attacks would not mean a death sentence for them. "We're not considering lethal control," Stephenson said. "That's not being contemplated at all. We're trying to stop it from continuing." The Rogue Pack is known in fall to frequent the Wood River Valley where the attacks occurred, but a collared wolf known as OR-33 also has been in the area in the past, Stephenson said. The GPS collar that helped Stephenson and the world track OR-7 through his famous journey from northeast Oregon to southwest Oregon and Northern California before settling in the South Cascades in 2013 to form the Rogue Pack went dead last summer. Stephenson said it is "very possible" that the Rogue Pack is behind the attacks, but there is no smoking gun such as GPS collar data proving the attacks were by the aging OR-7 or his pack, which now could be as large as nine wolves, he said. "It's getting more complicated," Stephenson said. "We have more wolves around. Some we know about, some we don't. "Regardless of whether it's the Rogue Pack, it's wolves," he said. "It's a problem." Stephenson has set up special fencing to deter wolves from re-entering the pastures, and there has been a greater human presence there over the past two nights in an attempt to get any wolves there to leave, Stephenson said. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife livestock predation reports state that evidence confirms wolves killed an 800-pound calf Oct. 2, and the next day a ranch hand observed three wolves feeding on the carcass. A 600-pound calf was killed Oct. 4 in an adjacent pasture, and on the following night, a third calf suffered bite marks attributed to wolves on its front and rear legs, according to the ODFW. The incidents were all on the same Wood River Valley ranch, according to the ODFW. Stephenson called the "flurry of attacks" a surprise, but he doesn't consider it chronic. Also, there are no "magic number of incidents" that would trigger killing the offending wolves under the federal Endangered Species Act, he said. "What's really important is what happens from here on out," Stephenson said. "Sometimes we're able to stop it, and sometimes it stops by itself." Wolves in the western two-thirds of Oregon are protected as endangered under the federal act. That differs from northeast Oregon, where the wolves are delisted and managed under Oregon's Wolf Plan. Under the state plan, four confirmed livestock predations attributed to the same pack over a six-month period could lead to a call for killing the offending wolves if nonlethal measures fail. OR-33 is Jackson County's other confirmed wolf, a lone wolf whose GPS collar helped widlife officials attribute it to the killing of two goats on consecutive nights in early June near Grizzly Peak east of Ashland. ODFW biologists last summer attempted but failed to capture and collar a member of the Rogue Pack. Stephenson said last week's attacks make it "a higher priority" to get a Rogue Pack member collared to keep tabs on the wolves. Reach Mail Tribune reporter Mark Freeman at 541-776-4470 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MTwriterFreeman.