Fish and Wildlife Commission considers future of wolf in Oregon
By JEFF BARNARD
Associated Press Writer
GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) – Wolves about to make a comeback in Oregon are
being portrayed as wildlife “terrorists” or potential saviors of a
troubled ecosystem as the state Fish and Wildlife Commission considers how
their migration from Idaho will affect other animals, ranchers and rural
communities.
The commission could decide on Friday whether to accept a petition from
the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association to drop the gray wolf from the state
endangered species list, and another petition from environmental groups to
develop a recovery plan welcoming newcomers to Oregon.
Three confirmed migrations in recent years prompted the commission to
consider the future of the wolf in Oregon. One wolf was shot, one was hit
by a car and one was captured and sent back to Idaho.
Wolves were eliminated in Oregon more than 50 years ago, wiped out to keep
cattle safe, and Joseph rancher Mack Birkmaier opposes efforts by
conservationists to help them return.
“In the wildlife community here, these people are willing to dump this
terrorist of the animal kingdom right in our laps,” said Birkmaier, a
former president of the cattlemen’s group.
Birkmaier sees the wolf as a Trojan horse for environmentalists to push
ranchers off the public range by reintroducing a predator that will make
it uneconomical to ranch.
“You barely can make a living in this business anyway,” Birkmaier said.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has overseen reintroductions of
gray wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, expects the predator to be
taken off the federal endangered species list in the next couple of years,
leaving individual states to handle the problem.
Environmentalists who have petitioned for a recovery plan feel the return
of wolves is inevitable, and it is best to be prepared.
“The ranching community could be the guys in the white hats on this issue
if they wanted to be,” said Ric Bailey of the Hells Canyon Preservation
Council.
“With wolves, the habitat considerations under the Endangered Species Act
are far, far less threatening to livestock interests than say sharptailed
grouse or sage grouse,” Bailey said.
“For the ranching community to suggest that the ecological holocaust that
occurred with the extinction of wolves should not be amended, that we
shouldn’t correct our mistakes, damages their own credibility. Haven’t
they progressed to the point they can live with native wildlife?”
Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in
Helena, Mont., said wolves have had little impact on livestock overall,
though they can cause serious damage to the herds of an individual
rancher.
Since 1997, the agency has confirmed wolves in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho
have killed 188 cattle, 494 sheep, and 43 dogs. Before wolves came to
Yellowstone National Park, area ranchers lost 8,340 cattle and 12,993
sheep from everything from lighting, noxious weeds, and difficult births,
said Bangs.
In response, the service has killed 103 wolves and moved wolves 117 times
to keep them away from humans and livestock.
The effect on big game, such as deer and elk, has been minimal as well,
Bangs said.
“Right now, if we have a wolf that disburses in Oregon and it isn’t doing
anything wrong, we will not spend a lot of time or effort trying to chase
it down,” Bangs said. “If it attacks livestock, we’ll probably just kill
it.”
Since wolves were put back in Yellowstone, they have knocked down the
coyote population, and helped a string of species down to carrion-eating
beetles, Bangs said. Willows have sprouted in places they haven’t grown in
years because elk are less likely to act like cattle and graze heavily in
one place.
“Ecologically, the basis of the web of life, is more diverse when wolves
are there,” Bangs said.
Bangs says the heated debate over wolves arises more from people’s
spiritual and cultural perception of the animals than anything economic or
ecological.
“The No. 1 species in wildlife art today is the wolf,” he said. “People
and wolves have an unbelievably complex relationship, from admiration by
Native Americans to hatred from the early American colonists.”