The Wyoming Game and Fish Department last week issued permits to ranchers to kill six wolves reported harassing and killing cattle, the first permits of their sort issued since the state took over management of the species.

The agency handed out a permit to kill four wolves to a landowner on the South Fork of the Shoshone River outside Cody and just east of Yellowstone National Park. Another permit for two wolves was issued to a rancher near Dubois.

“There has been a confirmed wolf depredation of cattle on this ranch,” near Dubois, Game and Fish said in a new weekly wolf report posted on the agency’s Web site.

The weekly reports will include information about current research findings, reported wolf kills and livestock depredation. The updates will be posted every Friday.

The state took over management of wolves March 28 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service relinquished oversight of the species, previously listed as threatened on the federal threatened and endangered species list. Since then, at least four wolves have been killed, all in Sublette County.

Under the state plan, Wyoming is divided into two zones. The wolves in Sublette County were in the area where animals can be killed at any time by any means.

In the Sublette shootings, three wolves — one female and two males — were killed west of Daniel and a male was killed in the New Fork River area, all on March 28.

The agency said it will be interviewing people this week for its new wolf coordinator position. Game and Fish had nothing to report regarding wolf research and said it had, through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services arm, captured, radio-collared and released two wolves along the South Fork of the Shoshone River. The exercise was part of the agency’s monitoring program.