By JOSEPH DITZLER
East Oregonian
Like an itinerant preacher, Casey Anderson has a message.
The 56-year-old Idaho ranch manager was a popular speaker at ranchers’ gatherings the past year:?October at the Cattle Producers of Washington annual meeting in Moses Lake, Wash., and in January the Intermountain Rangelands Symposium in Twin Falls, Idaho. In May 2010, he spoke at a public symposium in La Grande cosponsored by the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association.
His message is simple: Wolves are coming. Get ready.
“I want to show the facts and have the scientific research to back it up,” he said. “That’s my message. I don’t have to raise my voice, yell and holler, scream and point my finger. Most of the information you get is from wildlife biologists, the Humane Society, Defenders of Wildlife, and they have their agenda. Most of the things they say are not true. That’s the way I give my talk.”
Anderson, a Pendleton native who learned his trade in the Blue Mountains, speaks against a backdrop of anxiety and conflict as wolves spread into Eastern Oregon, reclaiming territory they haven’t inhabited in 65 years.
He is no Cassandra. He knows first hand what impact wolves have on a big livestock operation. What’s more, he has data to bolster his claims. Or, he has some data to suggest that wolves prey on cattle in ways researchers are just beginning to comprehend. His PowerPoint presentation consists of charts and graphs — the record of wolf and cattle movements tracked by satellite — interspersed with photographs of mutilated calves.
But the study Anderson cites, and is part of, is still under way. An Oregon State University researcher involved with it cautions against reading too much into what Anderson, who runs the OX Ranch east of the Snake River, has to say. Another said he’s fine with Anderson’s presentation, and points out that OX Ranch owners Tim and Joe Hixon are widely recognized wildlife conservationists.
“I’m not really nervous about Casey’s presentation,” said Douglas Johnson, professor of ecology and rangeland management at Oregon State University, Corvallis. “I guess I wouldn’t put this as any kind of us against them. The way we look at it is an issue that we really need some hard information so people can make policy decisions.”
As wolf numbers in Oregon grow — the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife confirms 25, with more likely — livestock producers gird for increased conflict with wolves. State wildlife authorities attribute at least 20 calf and cow deaths to wolves in Oregon since May 2010. The state killed two wolves in Wallowa County in May 2010 after deciding the pair was responsible for killing a calf. Two more Wallowa wolves of the Imnaha pack, including the alpha male, were marked for elimination after a calf was killed Sept. 22 near Joseph.
The Oregon Court of Appeals spared their lives Oct. 5 when three conservation groups asked for a stop to wolf kills while they mount a legal challenge to state authority to kill wolves. The court order arrived as a state wildlife agent tracked the wolves marked for removal.
Meanwhile, the study continues even as its data informs real-world applications. “You don’t need to finish the study to draw out management practices to minimize the threat from wolves,” said Johnson.
Surprising results
“Evaluation of Wolf Impacts on Cattle Productivity and Behavior” is a 3-year-old project that thus far has gathered data from only two collared wolves, not nearly enough on which to base firm conclusions. Anderson, in an interview, also qualified his remarks, saying much of his information is based on one wolf’s ramblings in Summer 2009. During that period, on the OX alone, researchers affixed 10 cows with GPS collars out of total herd of 450. The herd roamed over more than 150,000 acres of private property and public lands, belonging to either the ranch, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service or Idaho Department of Lands. The collars recorded position data every five minutes.
Meanwhile, researchers caught one male gray wolf, B446, and fitted it March 30, 2009, with a GPS collar that recorded position data every 15 minutes. Eventually, the data showed the wolf present at two cattle kills and probably involved in one. As a result, wildlife authorities killed the wolf after 190 days wearing the collar and downloaded its information, Anderson said.
“This data just flat blew us away,” he said.
It showed the wolf came into proximity of all 10 collared cows at one time or another. The wolf came within about 500 yards of all 10 on 784 occasions. It came within 100 yards on 54 occasions, according to information Anderson provided. On several occasions, the wolf and collared cattle were basically in the same spot, according to his records.
Anderson’s presentation also highlights how the collared wolf came within 500 yards of homes around the ranch on 307 occasions, and lingered a full day within 300 yards of a ranch lodge.
“The wolf stayed there all day,” Anderson said, pointing to an aerial photo of the site. “And that’s a well-traveled country road right there. It actually came down and we had wolf manure in the garden.”
Using data from the collar, researchers in spring 2010 visited sites on the OX where data showed wolf and cattle present simultaneously. “The first place they went to was cow bones, so there was a depredation there that we were unaware of because it wasn’t a collared cow that was killed,” Anderson said. “It takes the data and you go back to the ground and visually see it and you can really depend on it.”
Anderson believes his cattle are becoming primary prey for wolves, based on one wolf’s movements paralleling those of his herd over that one summer.
John Williams, OSU extension agent in Enterprise, said the study group doesn’t endorse Anderson’s presentation. Data from one wolf in one season does not provide sufficient data to support any firm conclusions, he said. Nonetheless, the plainspoken rancher with a laptop earned his platform by playing a key role in the study thus far.
“He’s the one that’s living it,” Williams said. “We’re the researchers.”
Scientific methods
The OX is one of six ranches involved with the study from the outset: three in Idaho and three in Oregon. The number has grown to eight. Other than the OX, Williams said, the locations remain confidential to avoid outside interference in the study. The project pairs four ranches in Idaho, where wolves are common, with four in Oregon, where they are not. The Oregon ranches serve as a control against the ranches in Idaho, allowing researchers to gauge the impact of wolves on livestock behavior against areas where wolves are not common or known to exist.
Researchers also collected six weeks of data on a wolf in eastern Idaho for a short period in 2009 and managed to collar a third Idaho wolf in June, Johnson said.
The Oregon Beef Council provided $154,807 in grants in June-September 2009, according to a November 2009 report. Johnson said the beef council provides some funding each year, but didn’t know how much. A beef council representative said he was unable to locate that information. The council is a state-supervised commission that promotes the marketing of beef raised in Oregon, according to its website. Since 2009, the study has received another $150,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Williams said.
Its participants, which also include Eastern Oregon University and the University of Idaho, expect a 10-year study. A liaison group works with ranchers who forward information and questions that they think need to be answered about wolf and livestock conflicts. For example, researchers are looking for data that suggests a change in cattle behavior in an environment in which wolves are present.
Conservationists questioned whether a study funded in part by a special interest and undertaken in part by researchers with the Oregon State University extension service could produce an unbiased result. Steve Pedery, conservation director for Oregon Wild, described the extension service as advocates for agriculture.
“We would love to see it subject to peer review, and have other scientists, not OSU extension agents, review it,” Pedery said. “The mission of the extension service is not to provide unbiased science. Their mission is to advocate for agriculture. I don’t have a problem with that. The problem arises when folks try to use OSU in capital letters and extension service in tiny type after it as unbiased science.”
Johnson said the study is subject to the same scrutiny applied to any scientific research. Although the project has yet to produce an authoritative paper on its underlying topic, it has spun off a handful of papers on related topics.
Williams, the Wallowa County extension agent, said the extension service applies the scientific method like any reputable research organization.
Ranchers count extension agents as friends and allies, in some cases. The extension service benefits agricultural practices in general as part of its mission. But Williams said bias in scientific research is not part of that equation.
“We also, you know, are working diligently to keep that kind of bias out of our study. It’s the agricultural research service,” Williams said. “Some people would say there might be some bias. Researchers say, ‘Look at the data.’ We work very hard to stick with the facts and answer those questions we’re asked to answer.”