An advocate for wolves in Oregon expressed relief Thursday that the Oregon Court of Appeals temporarily stopped plans to kill two male wolves of the Imnaha pack.

The number of known gray wolves in Oregon has dropped from 21 to 14, said Oregon Wild conservation director Steve Pedery.

“If they carry out the kill order, that’s down to 12,” he said Thursday.

State Appellate Commissioner James Mass, after reviewing an emergency petition from three conservation groups Wednesday, at 4:59 p.m. stopped state plans to kill the alpha male and a yearling male of the pack that inhabits Wallowa County. The pack is deemed responsible for killing as may as 14 cattle since 2010. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department decided to kill the two males after determining they killed a calf Sept. 22 near Joseph.

A spokesman for the Oregon Department of Justice said the state is considering its response

“There’s a stay, as far as that goes, so no wolves will be killed. We’re obviously going to comply,” said spokesman Tony Green. The question is whether the wildlife department contests the stay and that’s a decision the state has yet to make, he said.

Three conservation groups asked for the stay to buy time to challenge the rule that gives the wildlife department its authority to kill wolves under the Oregon Wolf Management Plan. The wolves are protected under the Oregon Endangered Species Act, which grants no exemption for killing wolves that prey upon livestock, an attorney for the groups said Wednesday. The temporary stay allows the petitioners and the state to prepare arguments on the underlying issue.

“It could take weeks to brief and argue,” said attorney Daniel Kruse of Eugene.

By agreeing to kill the alpha male, in particular, the state puts the existence of the Imnaha pack at risk, according to Pedery and Josh Laughlin, campaign director for Cascadia Wildlands, one of the three groups. Center for Biological Diversity is the third.

“It plays a critical role in maintaining and protecting that wolf pack,” Laughlin said Wednesday. “The female and the pup would be left to fend for themselves, not a good prospect.”

The Oregon Cattlemen’s Association at the time applauded the agency decision to eliminate the wolves. A geopositioning collar on the alpha male placed it at the calf-kill site, as well as other kill sites.

Rod Childers, chairman of the Oregon Cattleman’s Association wolf task force, said ranchers have yet to resort to legal remedies to their disagreements with the state wolf management plan. Conservation groups that supported the wolf management plan are suddenly changing their position, he said.

“I don’t know what to say,” Childers said Wednesday. “I?guess I?have more questions than comments.”

Pedery said wolf advocates accepted the plan with the understanding that eliminating wolves would come as a last resort. The wolf management plan envisioned a goal of four breeding pairs as quickly as possible, after which “flexible management,” including compensation for lost livestock or wolf kills, would be employed, he said. That formed the basis for a compromise with the cattlemen’s association, he said.

Instead, he said, there exists “a ceaseless demand to shoot a wolf every time a cow goes missing, even when compensation if offered.”

Kruse said wolf advocates accept the plan overall, but contest the rule that allows wolf kills. Laughlin said the decision to file suit did not come easily.

“This was our only course of action,”?he said. “We flooded the governor’s office with thousands of letters, calls and emails to no avail. And we were left with no other recourse than filing this legal challenge.”

The state, he said, needs to focus more on its mission of recovering the gray wolf population “rather than bowing to political pressure in northeast Oregon.”