White Wolf Sanctuary owner testifies for wolf protection
By Joel Gallob
Of the News-Times Lois Tulleners, owner and creator of the White Wolf Sanctuary in the Coast Range above Tidewater, sought to correct misunderstandings that people often have about wolves, when she testified Thursday before the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting in Newport.
“Wolves do not attack people,” she said. “Wolves do not like to eat domestic animals, especially cattle and sheep.” Far more domestic animals die from noxious weeds or difficult births, than from wolf predation, she said, adding that in Montana, where wolves have been reintroduced, “only six cattle and five sheep have been killed by wolves.”
At the White Wolf Sanctuary that she manages, Tulleners said she has had donations of many dead cattle, horses, sheep and goats. “When (they were) taken into the wolf habitats,” she said, “the wolves merely sniffed the animals, but would not eat them. We no longer accept domestic animals for this reason.”
She told the commissioners who oversee the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife that as an apex predator, wolves make deer and elk herds stronger by taking out the old and sick. The carcasses help feed other animals, from insects to bears.
“The states that currently have a wild wolf population have enjoyed boosts to their economy,” she added. “The American public wants wolf recovery and will pay to visit states which have them.”
The commissioners arrived at Newport’s Embarcadero Resort on Thursday morning for a two-day meeting, with the first day given over to the contentious issues of wolf recovery, reintroduction and de-listing as a protected species.
Today’s (Friday) meeting will feature discussion of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s draft fish hatchery policy and a discussion of options for the 2003 ocean salmon seasons.
But it was the wolf issues that were front and center for the state fish and wildlife managers this week. Two days before they came to Newport, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reclassified the gray wolves as “threatened,” rather than “endangered.” The change reduced federal protections for the predators, and will, under federal law, allow ranchers to shoot a gray wolf attacking livestock or pets on private land.
That leaves the wolves on Oregon’s endangered species list, where they are still protected by that law – that means a rancher who shoots a wolf legally under federal law could still be brought to trial under state law.
Oregon is not one of the states with a reintroduction program from the federal fish and wildlife service. But three wolves from packs reintroduced into Idaho traveled into Oregon. One was shot illegally, one was killed by a car, and the third was captured and returned to Idaho. ODFW Director Lindsay Ball said, “wolves have a mind of their own, they decide when they want to go to the next mountain range.”
The state fish and wildlife commissioners, like the state legislature, were now faced with the issue of what to do – whether to leave Oregon law as is regarding wolves, or bring it in line with current federal law.
State Senator Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day, said he knows what many of his constituents in eastern Oregon want. “Some people want them re-introduced,” he said. “Some do not. But those who want them probably won’t live with them, nor suffer the loss of livelihood” through predation of domestic livestock.
Ferrioli urged that the commission “create and utilize the authority to manage them,” consistent with federal law, so that Oregon does “everything we can to avoid conflicts” between humans, livestock, and the returning wolves.
Whether to craft a plan for managing the wolves was the first issue on the commission’s agenda, but it was clear no one thought there should not be such a plan.
Craig Ely, ODFW’s Northeast Region manager, listed some of the planning issues. Should human and pet safety be a factor? Most comments ODFW has received say it should be.
Should ODFW educate people about wolves? The public response has been very much in support of that, he said.
Should the agency include an assessment of ecosystem health benefits or effects from the wolves? That, Ely said, was not an issue in other states’ plans, even though perhaps it should be.
Should ranchers be compensated if they lose livestock? Many say they should be, and of the six states with wolves, three have state-run compensation programs, and the other three have private ones.
How much will it cost to manage them? The lowest figure presented by Ely was under $200,000 per year..
What habitat is available to them here? Quite a lot, said Ely. Commissioner Jeff Feldner of Logsden noted that the Coast Range behind his house would be fine wolf habitat.
How much money from hunters will rural communities lose to predation on herds of deer and elk? And how much of a reduction in hunting opportunities will the return create? It’s possible to estimate answers to those questions, explained Mark Hejum, ODFW’s northeast wildlife diversity biologist. He said it is known how many calories a wolf needs per year to keep going, and how much it can get from a deer or elk.
Ferrioli noted that “a range of alternatives” could include “lethal and non-lethal” options for handling wolves that harm livestock.
The central question, though, was whether ranchers and others should be allowed to kill wolves under certain circumstances.
Various answers were offered, and will be assessed as ODFW drafts a plan for the returning wolves. The plan might involve zones where wolves are allowed and others where they are not. A minimum number of wolves could be set, one commissioner suggested, below which none could be killed, but above which, those that harm livestock could be shot. Or they could be given a new status, with various protections, or none.
Bill Cook, a lawyer from the state Attorney General’s office, said the law could be changed in different ways. The wolves, if taken off the endangered species list, would still be deemed a protected species, unless further legislative action changed that default status. They could be deemed a game animal and subject to hunting, or given an unprotected “predator” status, or be as a fur-bearing animals and be subject to trapping as well as hunting.
Sanctuary owner Tulleners did not want any such changes – she wants Oregon to leave the animals protected under Oregon law. “It is the job of ODFW to uphold the (state) Endangered Species Act and to protect them, rather than to downlist, delist and once again annihilate these majestic animals,” she concluded.