Grant County offers cool reception to wolves
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
By David Carkhuff
Editor
CANYON CITY — Legal maneuvering at the county level could set the stage for a rebuff of federally reintroduced wolves that wander into Eastern Oregon.
Grant County leaders linked arms with their Union County courterparts to request that the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission remove the wolf from the Oregon Endangered Species Act. The commission is considering the issue, and legislation is pending to authorize the animal’s removal from state protection.
“We need to de-list the wolf,” the Union County Board of Commissioners wrote Feb. 26 in a letter circulated to other counties. “We need to remove wolves from the Oregon endangered list. (The listing) offers no additional protection than what is already provided in federal law, but creates an expensive barrier for Oregonians to overcome should de-listing happen at the federal level. This predator has an astounding financial impact on an industry that has taken more than its share of hits.”
On March 5, the Grant County Court echoed this plea in a letter of its own to the commission. The Grant County letter reads, “This predator has an astoundingly negative financial impact on the livestock industry which has already been struggling over the past decade relative to changing natural resource practices.”
This letter is signed by Grant County Judge Dennis Reynolds and commissioners Boyd Britton and Scott Myers.
The Union County letter seeks to bridge the urban-rural divide in Oregon by appealing directly to city residents, likening wolves to a computer virus in a big city.
“To our urban counterparts, we suggest to you that the continuing introduction of this predator into our living-business space is no less destructive than letting loose a computer virus into the urban business community,” the letter reads. “The destruction rural business faces is not merely the loss of data or the expense of computer repair. We find ourselves losing living, breathing livestock, not to mention treasured family pets.”
The Grant County Court may seek a legal case to deter the state from allowing wolves to live unhindered in Eastern Oregon.
Reynolds said he has asked the county’s legal counsel to draft a proposed ordinance that, if approved by the public, would make it illegal for anyone to keep purebred wolves in Grant County.
“The county has the exclusive right to determine if it will allow possession of exotic animals within the county,” Reynolds noted.
By state law, “a city or county may prohibit by ordinance the keeping of wildlife … (and) the keeping of exotic animals,” according to Oregon Revised Statute 609.205. Exotic animals include any wolf and “any nonwolf member of the family Canidae not indigenous to Oregon, except the species Canis familiaris (domestic dog).”
The law regulates holding facilities for exotic animals “to avoid undue physical or financial risk to the public.” A separate section of law, ORS609.170, allows livestock producers to claim damage for damage to livestock caused by dogs; wolves are not mentioned in this section.
By passing an ordinance prohibiting the keeping of wolves, Grant County could launch a legal query into the status of migratory wolves as exotic animals, Reynolds said.
“The question it will raise is whether or not anyone can keep wolves in Grant County,” he said.