It's not easy to snap pictures of wolf pups. First you have to know where they are, then they have to come out of hiding.

On Monday, a federal and state biologist set out on a mission to find OR-7, Oregon's erstwhile wandering wolf, and a black wolf they suspected was his mate. They drove to a site in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest that had often turned up in radio transmissions from OR-7's collar.

They parked and hiked, tromping through thick brush and downed timber. There was no question of sneaking up on the wolves. The animals were certain to hear them from afar with the rustling through the wilderness.

As the biologists hiked, they stayed alert, listening, watching, scanning. They spotted movement on a log. John Stephenson, wolf coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, saw it out of the corner of his eye.

"I caught a glimpse of the gray one," Stephenson said. "He went into the log."

Stephenson also saw the second pup. At one point, he could see them both and tried to get a shot but he made a noise and the two pups crouched back into the protection of the hollowed log.

"They were quite wary," Stephenson said.

The biologists also heard scurrying in the brush that could have been other pups and possibly the mother. Wolves usually produce four to six offspring per litter.

No other wolves were in sight. Stephenson presumed that OR-7 was hunting. Part of a deer leg, sign of a fresh kill or of scavenging, was near the log.

A probable den, a big hole dug under a log, was nearby.

Stephenson said the pups, five or six weeks old, are probably nursing and spending their days playing and sunning. When they get bigger, the pack will travel, moving in a large territory in search of food. Wolves can scavenge when hunts fail, which is often.

"It's hard to bring down game," Stephenson said.

But OR-7 has shown he can survive alone. Born into the Imnaha pack in northeast Oregon, he spent three years trekking south, into California, then back to Oregon, looking for a mate.

Stephenson and a biologist from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife collected scat, which they will put through DNA testing. Those results could reveal where the black female wolf came from. Biologists keep databases that allow them to identify lineages.

Biologists will try to find OR-7 again later this summer or in early fall to collar one of the adults. OR-7's collar still works but is near the end of its lifespan.

"It will be the luck of the draw - catching the female or OR-7," Stephenson said.

The pack, which does not yet have a name, is the newest in Oregon. The pups mark the first wolf reproduction in western Oregon since the 1940s.

-- Lynne Terry