Decades after they were driven off or killed, wolves have returned to Lane and Douglas counties.

A trio of gray wolves is roaming the forested southeast corner of Lane County, as well as woods in northeast Douglas County, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

"We are confident these wolves are using Lane County at times given reports of wolf activity in the area," said Michelle Dennehy, spokeswoman for the ODFW.

Bounty hunts wiped wolves from Lane and Douglas counties and other parts of Oregon by the middle of the past century. The last wolf killed for bounty in Oregon was in 1946 in the Umpqua National Forest, and state records note a wolf killed in 1931 near McKenzie Bridge in Lane County and two wolves killed in Douglas County in 1930.

So it's been many years since wolves established territories in Lane or Douglas counties.

"It's been a long time," said John Stephenson, the lead wolf biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Oregon. Over the past decade, wolves have been dispersing from northeast Oregon to other parts of the state.

"We've had some of these dispersers pass through (Lane and Douglas counties) in the last few years but they never settled there ... now they have," he said.

Like Oregon, other states also sponsored hunts for wolves. In 1995, wildlife biologists reintroduced wolves to Yellowstone National Park. Since then they've spread around the West. Wolves returned to Oregon in the late 2000s and, as of early last year, there were about 124 wolves in the state and 12 known packs.

Most of the state's wolves are found in northeast Oregon, but dispersing wolves have established new territories and created new packs in the Cascades. The state recognized the Rogue River Pack, established by the well-traveled OR-7 radio-collared wolf, in 2014. A pair of wolves, known as the White River wolves, has been near Mount Hood since late 2017.

The latest wolves, called the Indigo wolves, fill in a territorial gap in the mountains, Stephenson said. Wolves thrive where there are plenty of deer and elk as prey.

"We kind of expected more packs by now in the Cascades," he said.

Wolves are a federally protected species in the western two thirds of Oregon, although the Fish and Wildlife Service is considering removing protections for the animal. The state manages wolves in the eastern third of the state.

For a couple of years, Stephenson heard reports of wolves in the high country of southeast Lane County and northeast Douglas County.

In early February he got his best lead yet: tracks left by more than one wolf found by an Oregon State Police Trooper.

He set up a trail camera in the Umpqua National Forest, in Douglas County. The camera captured images of three wolves on Feb. 20.

While the species is called a gray wolf, the color of the individual animal may vary. Two of the three wolves in the images are gray and the third is black. The photos show the three wolves moving together, closely.

The wolves are frequenting upper drainages of the North Umpqua and Willamette rivers. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has designated the section of woods as a new "area of known wolf activity."

Dennehy called the trio "resident wolves," but not a wolf pack. "A pack is four (or more) wolves traveling together in winter," she said.

Wildlife managers have little data on the group of wolves, such as their sex, breeding status and specific territory. None of the three wolves is wearing a tracking collar. But Stephenson said he expects the wolves to breed this spring, potentially adding pups and becoming a new pack.

Follow Dylan Darling on Twitter @DylanJDarling. Email dd@registerguard.com.