Social Network

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

Oregon producers steamed over Idaho wolf strays

Oregon producers steamed over Idaho wolf strays

By ED MERRIMAN
Ag Weekly correspondent

SALEM, Ore. — Cattle and sheep producers traveled across Oregon to urge lawmakers and the state Fish and Wildlife Commission to preserve their right to trap and remove or kill stray Idaho wolves that pose a threat to their livestock.

Officially there aren’t any wolf packs residing in Oregon, and livestock producers told lawmakers and state wildlife officials they’d like to keep it that way during hearings held recently in Salem and Newport.

Rancher Sharon Beck said she takes issue with an opinion issued last month by assistant attorney general William Cook that as long as the wolf is listed as an endangered species under Oregon’s Endangered Species Act it is illegal to kill wolves on public or private land.

That prohibition applies statewide, whether or not the wolves are escapees from Idaho’s reintroduced wolf packs.

In response to the assistant attorney general’s opinion, the OCA, along with the Oregon Sheep Growers Association, Oregon Farm Bureau and Oregon State Grange are supporting legislation such as Senate Bill 97, which would remove the ESA listing for wolves and restore their classification as predators.

In addition, the Fish and Wildlife Commission held a series of hearings around the state concluding last week in Newport to take public comments on proposals to rewrite the state ESA to provide greater leeway for ranchers to kill wolves and other predators that threaten or attack their livestock.

During hearings before both the Legislature and the Fish and Wildlife Commission , Beck, a past president of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association whose family has been raising cattle in Wallow and Union counties for more than 100 years, said Cook’s opinion contradicts state laws as well as pledges made by federal wildlife officials involved in setting up the federal wolf recovery program launched in Idaho in 1995.

“This is exactly what we were afraid would happen even though they looked us right in the eye and swore it wouldn’t,” Beck said.

In addition to assurances from federal agencies, state officials from former Gov. John Kitzhaber on down promised that any wolves entering the state from Idaho would be rounded up and returned across the border or killed, she said.

Margaret Magruder, a Columbia County sheep producer who served on the Oregon Board of Agriculture and is a member of Oregon Sheep Growers Association and Oregon State Grange, pointed out that congressional authorization of the wolf recovery program was contingent on containment of reintroduced wolf packs within designated wilderness areas in Idaho.

While struggling to maintain her composure, Magruder said depressed lamb and wool prices have driven many Oregon sheep producers out of business in recent years, and those who have survived are struggling and can’t afford to lose any sheep to wolves.

Three Idaho wolves known to have invaded Oregon since 1995 were either killed or captured and returned. However, several other undocumented wolf sightings have been reported in eastern Oregon around John Day and as far north as Meacham (between La Grande and Pendleton).

Glen Stonebrink, OCA executive director, provided lawmakers with copies of state statutes that — contrary to the assistant attorney general’s opinion — spell out the right of livestock producers to kill predators such as wolves that threaten or attack their animals.

Skye Krebs, an eastern Oregon sheep producer and past president of Oregon Sheep Growers Association, brought photos of sheep mutilated by wolves and cougars to enlighten lawmakers and Fish and Wildlife Commission members about the type of damage those predators can and do cause to livestock.

Source