Social Network

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

WA: Wolf advisory group member questions lack of representation for Northeast Washington ranchers

Tom Davis, a member of the wolf advisory group member and director of government relations for the Washington Farm Bureau, doesn’t think Northeast cattle ranchers have a specific representative. He feels the group is missing the on-the-ground perspective.

Matthew Weaver
Capital Press

SPOKANE — Consultant Francine Madden says Washington’s wolf advisory group needs to consider all segments of the public in developing the next steps of its wolf management plan. But a member of the group says the ranchers most affected by wolves aren’t involved in the process.

During a Spokane meeting May 1, Madden emphasized to the group the need for public engagement, likening the process to putting together a puzzle that represents all facets, with red, blue, white, green and purple pieces.

“Everyone, inevitably, is going to have puzzle pieces you like and puzzle pieces you don’t like,” she said. “As you go through this process … you have to look at all of them. If you flip over a puzzle piece that you don’t like, have patience, because you’ll get to a puzzle piece you do like.”

But a couple of the puzzle pieces are unaccounted for, said group member Tom Davis, director of government relations with the Washington Farm Bureau.

Davis told the group he was concerned that ranchers in northeast Washington, where the bulk of wolf activity has occurred, are not represented.

“Twenty of the 22 (wolf) packs in the state are located up in the northeast and yet nobody from that area that represents ranching specifically is here,” Davis told the Capital Press.

Sixteen of the state’s 22 packs are in the northeast recovery zone, according to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The group does not have representatives from the groups Cattle Producers of Washington or Stevens County Cattlemen. CPOW left the group in October 2015, calling it “inept and pointless.”

Davis wonders if other ranchers in the region would have served if asked.

“We talk here in generalities at the 30,000-foot level,” he said. “All we’re hearing on the ground-level aspect is mainly from department staff, who have a much different lens they look through. They go home at the end of the night and sleep through the night, they don’t have to get up and chase cows or chase wolves.”

Ranchers are looking at problems in the northeast as an example of how the department will handle the situation, Davis said. Not having a representative from the region to provide first-hand information is a “trust issue,” he said.

“I don’t know how you can have a WAG that’s effective without somebody from the Northeast,” he said. “It’s a travesty of justice.”

Stevens County commissioner Don Dashiell, also a member of the group, said most ranchers believe the process is a waste of time.

The group is an advisory group by definition, he said. The department must implement processes and programs.

The group tries to represent ranchers, Dashiell said, but has a broad spectrum of stakeholders.

“The ones that have skin in the game aren’t the same ones who have blood in the game,” he said. “This group looks at blood and skin as the same thing.”

During a portion of the meeting when members of the public in the audience were invited to write comments, some felt there was too much emphasis on ranchers’ profits and not on the public’s right to a healthy environment or protection of endangered species.

“Producers must realize loss of cattle on public land is a risk of doing business, wolves must have priority for their survival,” Madden read from the comments. “Move the cattle, not kill the wolf.”

Molly Linville of Cascades, Samee Charriere of Pomeroy, Jess Kayser of Centerville and Nick Martinez of Moxee are livestock producers serving on the advisory group.

Advisory group member Tim Coleman, executive director of the Kettle Range Conservation Group in Republic, said he doesn’t think there’s too little or too much talk about ranchers.

He pointed to Dashiell and Davis as representatives for ranchers.

Coleman said there was “more kind, friendly talk amongst all of us” after the Spokane meeting than he’s experienced at previous meetings.

Coleman said the group needs to discuss the puzzle piece of thickly-forested, deep-sided mountains where some grazing allotments are located. He wonders if a different pasturing system can be created that would serve ranchers, reduce risks and save taxpayers money.

“Is there some new strategy that we can try out?” he said. “What do you do about these circumstances, because you’re not going to kill your way out of this.”

Any changes would need buy-in from ranchers, Coleman said.

Donny Martorello, department wolf policy coordinator, said the Northeast region is represented. When filling recent vacancies on the advisory group, the department tried to get representation for as many communities as possible, he said.

Rancher needs anywhere there are wolves are a priority for the department, he said.

Source