Social Network

Email: timberwolfinfonetwork@gmail.com
Email: timberwolfinfonetwork@gmail.com

OR: Counties seek $145,000 from state’s wolf compensation fund

Oregon counties are asking the state for $145,436 to compensate ranchers for losses to wolves.

Top county requests include $30,000 from Union and Umatilla counties.

Wallowa County, site of nearly two-dozen wolf depredations in recent years — including several since the Aug. 2 implementation of the fund — requested $27,230.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has fielded several reports of wolf activity in Union and Umatilla counties, but has yet to confirm a livestock loss to wolves in those counties.

Only losses confirmed by ODFW agents are eligible for compensation under the livestock depredation portion of the fund.

The fund also compensates ranchers for missing animals and for costs of implementing nonlethal control measures.

Oregon lawmakers established the wolf compensation fund in 2011, putting $100,000 into it for the 2011-13 biennium. The fund operates through county grant requests.

Other county grant requests include $24,286 from Jefferson, $20,000 from Grant, $7,500 from Baker, $3,900 from Malheur, $2,520 from Crook.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture, which administers the fund, expects to announce grant awards in the next few days.

–Mitch Lies

Source