Ranchers say 'rogue' wolves must go

Reaction to the first documented wolf depredation in Oregon since the species began returning 10 years ago.

Cattle and sheep industry leaders think they should have the right to hunt and shoot rogue wolves in the wake of wolf attacks that left 23 lambs dead on the Jacobs ranch in Keating Valley.

“Those wolves showed up at Jacobs’ sheep pens. They hadn’t been killing any sheep before. They jumped in those pens next to the houses, shops and barns where people live and work, and started killing lambs,” said Mike Colton, a Baker County rancher and member of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association’s wolf committee.

“These are sheep penned in close to home. That is a logical step you would take to protect livestock from predators,” Colton said. “Wolves are certainly much more of a threat to livestock if they are going to come in that close and kill.
“That’s bad behavior for a wolf,” he said. “These are rogue wolves, and we need the ability to hunt them down like we do with any other rogue predator — like we do when a bear, a cougar or a coyote goes bad.”

Greg Dyson, of the Hells Canyon Preservation Council in La Grande, pointed out that wolves are protected in Oregon under both the federal and state endangered species acts because of their low numbers.

Bears, cougars and coyotes aren’t protected because their populations are much larger.

Instead of presenting the lamb killings at the Jacobs ranch as justification for landowners to kill wolves, Dyson said he sees it as proof that the Oregon Wolf Plan, adopted in 2005, works.

“The response at the ranch has been thorough and immediate to protect livestock and compensate the rancher,” Dyson said. “We have been saddened by this situation. Nobody likes to see something like this happen to anybody’s livelihood.”

“On the other hand, this is an endangered species, so wolves shouldn’t be treated like bears, cougars or coyotes,” Dyson said.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced its confirmation that it was in fact wolves that attacked and killed 23 lambs between April 9 and April 13 at the Jacobs ranch about 15 miles northeast of Baker City.

“We’ve been working since this weekend with the rancher and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and others to help the rancher avoid any more incidents like these,” said Gary Miller, field supervisor for the USFWS office in La Grande.

Miller confirmed that electric fence with flagging donated by Defenders of Wildlife has been taken to the ranch to discourage wolves from attacking sheep there.

In addition to providing fencing, Defenders of Wildlife offers handbooks and online assistance to help livestock producers learn what attracts wolves and other predators, and how to avoid livestock losses, said Suzanne Stone, a representative for the Defenders of Wildlife Northern Rockies regional office in Boise.

Stone said Jacobs is also eligible for reimbursement for the value of the lambs under a Defenders of Wildlife program that has paid $1.2 million for confirmed wolf depredation of livestock in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Utah since 1987.

“The funding for this program is all from private donations,” Stone said.

“This would be the first time compensation has been provided for wolf depredation in Oregon,” she said.

The Defenders of Wildlife compensation continues only as long as wolves are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. That protection is scheduled to end May 4 in a region that includes Northeastern Oregon.

However, since Defenders of Wildlife and 11 other groups intend to file a lawsuit appealing the May 4 wolf delisting, Stone said the organization has agreed to continue compensating ranchers for livestock losses that happen while the lawsuit is pending.

Fred Warner Jr., chairman of the Baker County Board of Commissioners, said he and his two fellow commissioners, Carl Stiff and Tim Kerns, have always been reluctant to support the Oregon ESA and the state wolf plan because both hamper the ability of ranchers to kill wolves that attack livestock.

“If the people want wolves to exist in Oregon, and if the wolves stay on public lands, they are free to roam around, as long as they are behaving themselves, but when they take livestock indiscriminately, there should be a provision to get rid of those wolves,” Warner said.

“I believe that a wolf should have no more protection than any other animal when they are killing livestock,” Warner said. “It’s like a chicken-killing dog, you can beat it over the head with a dead chicken, but it’s still a chicken-killing dog.”

Sean Stevens of Oregon Wild said his group and others joined in a lawsuit to stop the federal de-listing of wolves due largely to concerns over Idaho’s plan that calls for reducing that state’s wolf population from 800 to 100.

“If the wolf population in Idaho is taken down from 800 to 100, there wouldn’t be a very good chance for wolves to be restored in Oregon, because that’s where Oregon wolves are coming from,” Stevens said.

He said wolf control programs went too far by wiping out Oregon’s wolf population by 1946. But with endangered species protections wolves are making a comeback, which can be beneficial provided it is kept in balance and livestock producers and others learn to live with wolves.

“Wolves are a top predator,” Stevens said. “Wolves control coyote populations and make deer and elk herds stronger by culling weaker specimens.”

“There is lots of good wolf habitat in the Wenaha, Eagle Cap and Imnaha” areas of Northeastern Oregon, Stevens said.

Warner, however, said Northeastern Oregon is not historic wolf territory. He contends wolves that migrate into the state from Idaho should be relocated to Western Oregon.

“Northeastern Oregon is not great wolf habitat,” Warner said. “Now that wolves are moving into Oregon, we should be relocating them to Western Oregon, where they have great habitat in the foothills of the southern Willamette Valley and the Portland area.”

While the attack on the Jacobs lambs is fueling a controversy about landowner rights to protect their livestock versus the desires of environmental groups and others to restore wolf populations in Oregon, Stevens said he’s hoping “cooler heads will prevail” to manage wolves in a way that balances competing interests.

“Folks that support wolf recovery are not doe-eyed. They know it is controversial,” Stevens said.

“Having wolves running rampant across Eastern Oregon is not balanced,” Stevens said. “Hopefully we can do things to protect livestock and avoid some of these conflicts up front.”

Colton believes wolves are overprotected under provisions of the federal and state endangered species acts, which prohibit livestock producers from shooting a wolf even if it is caught in the act of attacking and killing livestock.

He said the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association and other livestock groups have tried to get the Oregon Legislature to amend the state Endangered Species Act to bring it in line with the Oregon Wolf Management Plan, which supports the right of ranchers to kill wolves caught attacking livestock.

“We have been from the beginning talking about provisions that would allow us to kill a wolf in the act of attack,” Colton said.

However, he points out that the Jacobs case, in which wolves killed 23 lambs during two nighttime attacks, shows it’s unlikely ranchers would interrupt an attack.

“From the livestock producer’s perspective, whether you can kill a wolf caught in an attack doesn’t mean anything,” Colton said.

The Jacobs case shows that what ranchers need is the right to shoot wolves that depart from normal wolf behavior and kill lambs, calves or other livestock near homes, barns and places where people live and work, Colton said.

Warner said he’s glad Defenders of Wildlife intends to compensate the Jacobs family for their lambs. But he agrees with the Farm Bureau that the state should have its own compensation fund.

“It should not be on the backs of landowners,” Warner said. “It should be a state fund, not dependent on some non-profit organization that may or may not decide to compensate landowners for their losses.”

He pointed out that proving wolves killed the Jacobses’ lambs was easy because a motion-sensing camera photographed two wolves inside the lambs’ pen.

“In the real world, when wolves attack and kill a 400-pound calf on the range, and the only proof is some wolf tracks and not other evidence, the rancher bears the cost,” Warner said.

Stone and other representatives of environmental and wildlife groups said the Jacobs case, in which two wolves jumped fences and attacked little lambs, killing but not eating them while ignoring adult sheep, represents a rare and unfortunate type of wolf behavior that supporters and opponents of wolf recovery agree should be discouraged.

Stone said wolf depredation accounts for less than 1 percent of all livestock losses in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming

Individuals who see a wolf or suspect wolf activity should call Russ Morgan at 541-963-2138; or John Stephenson, USFWS wolf coordinator at 541-962-8584 or 541-786-3282.

For information about the Oregon Wolf Management Plan, or to report wolf sightings online, visit the ODFW’s wolf Web site at www.dfw.state.or.us/wolves/.