Earlier this week, 19 elk were killed by wolves where wildlife officials in Wyoming consider this as a "surplus kill". According to John Lund who is the regional wildlife supervisor for Pinedale's Wyoming Game and Fish Department, these vicious wolves attacked and killed 17 elk calves and two adult cows near Bondurant.

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Lund says that although it is common for wolves to kill one or two elk during the night, but having slaughtered 19 in one night is considered to be a "fairly rare" phenomenon.

Lund explains that surplus killing is that when an animal kills more than the prey that it can handle to eat and then abandoning its surplus. He describes this killing as something that must have triggered this crazy behavior in the wolves, as most predators kill with the intention to eat but this was not the case.

The wolves apparently killed one elk after the next moving on to the next prey, where wildlife officials are still not sure what caused this odd behavior. He adds that over the past winter, the wolves in the area have killed at least 70 to 75 elk which has been considerably a "significant" number.

Officials say that based on the observations of this elk herd, these deaths will pose a significant impact on hunting season and hunter opportunities.

In Wyoming, wolves are protected by federal law, which means that wildlife managers cannot impose protection and preventive measures on a local level to lessen wolf populations even though they are killing higher numbers of elk than usual.

In addition, the federal government are not keen on managing wolf populations unless they are targeting livestock as prey.

This was first reported in local media, according to local a KTVQ news tweet on March 25, where Wyoming wolves killed 19 elk in a suspected "surplus killing".

According to Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Coordinator, Mike Jimenez from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, for most of the time, wolves do not kill for sport. He told local news that after conducting an eight year study and observing elk feed grounds, these wolves generally did not kill what they did not eat.