Appeal Tribune Wednesday, February 15, 2017 3B
Proposal would allow hunting wolves
caused primarily by wolf predation.
Environmental groups say killing any
of the roughly 150 wolves to save a pop-
ulation of around 125,000 elk or 220,000
mule deer is premature and unneces-
sary. And, they said, the benefit of
wolves is bringing equilibrium to the un-
gulate population.
“Let us put to bed the great unwashed
notion that wolves routinely so negativ-
ely impact wild ungulate populations
that there is a precipitous decline in deer
and elk,” said Amaroq Weiss, West Coast
Wolf Organizer for the Center for Bio-
logical Diversity. “Wolves and their wild
prey evolved in lockstep for tens of thou-
sands of years; it simply defies ecologi-
cal sense for wolf predation to have a cat-
astrophic impact on its wild prey.”
ZACH URNESS
STATESMAN JOURNAL
Oregon wildlife officials have long
maintained that no hunting season is
planned for the state’s wolf population,
even as the number of wolves in state
continues to grow.
Wolf hunting is legal in nearby Idaho
and Montana — and around 400 animals
are harvested annually between the two
states — but officials have said no simi-
lar plan is envisioned for Oregon.
Environmental groups disagree, and
say the state is planning to offer wolf
hunting in Oregon, and possibly soon,
just by a different name.
A proposal that could allow the public
to hunt “problem wolves” — animals that
attack livestock or cause a major decline
in game populations — has become a
flashpoint in negotiations over revisions
to Oregon’s wolf plan.
The Oregon Department of Fish and
Wildlife said in reports that it’s only con-
sidering a more cost-effective manage-
ment tool for wolves.
“This isn’t sport hunting because
we’re not going to have a season — we’re
not looking to create an opportunity,”
ODFW spokeswoman Michelle Dennehy
said. “This would be a ‘controlled take’
intended to address damage in very spe-
cific circumstances.”
Hunting and ranching groups support
special permits allowing the hunts,
pointing out that the animals in question
would otherwise be killed by state offi-
cials.
But environmental groups strongly
oppose any public hunting of the state’s
roughly 150 wolves.
“Regardless of how it is framed, the
hunting proposed will result in annual
wolf killing — the very reason this spe-
cies was wiped out from the Lower 48,”
said Nick Cady, conservation director
for the environmental group Cascadia
Wildlands.
The proposal is one of 10 being
considered during revisions to the wolf
plan, a process that occurs every five
years. The proposals will go before the
Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission
during a meeting on April 21 in Klamath
Falls.
The confusion — and disagreement —
boils down to how you define hunting.
Hunting vs. controlled take
When wolves in northeast Oregon re-
peatedly attack livestock, the state is
currently empowered to take lethal ac-
tion. In March of 2016, for example, state
officials killed four wolves in the Imnaha
Pack.
Poaching
PHOTO COURTESY OF ODFW
A remote camera captured this image of the Minam wolf pack in Eagle Cap Wilderness of
Wallowa County on Dec. 14, 2012.
In the proposed revision, ODFW is
considering allowing members of the
public — defined as licensed hunters and
trappers — to kill the wolves instead of
state officials. The move would save the
department time and money, a state re-
port says.
“Currently … a large expenditure of
personnel and financial resources is in-
volved,” the report says. “It follows that
the future use of hunters and trappers …
would be expected to assist.”
The hunting would only apply to
wolves in the eastern third of Oregon af-
ter they reach Phase 3 of the wolf plan —
seven breeding pairs for three consecu-
tive years. That could happen as early as
2017, but given the small wolf population,
and the fact that any use of public hunt-
ers would need to be approved by the
ODFW Commission, it may not happen
very quickly, officials said.
Jim Akenson, conservation director
for the Oregon Hunters Association, said
he supports a highly-regulated permit
system being implemented.
“Right now, a wolf biologist goes out
and shoots the wolves when there’s a
problem,” Akenson said. “Why not util-
ize the situation in a manner that pro-
vides a hunting opportunity, while also
serving a management need?”
Environmentalists worry that issuing
a special permit to hunt wolves would
create a financial incentive for ODFW to
allow more opportunities, Cady said.
“The hunting proposal sets up an in-
centive system whereby funding for the
wolf program will rest upon making
chronic depredation determinations and
commissioning these hunts,” he said in
public testimony.
It’s also premature, said Arran Rob-
ertson, spokesman from the environ-
mental group Oregon Wild.
“The wolf population is still very
small and in recovery,” he said. “Depu-
tizing the public to kill wolves on the
agency's behalf presupposes that ODFW
is going to need to kill so many wolves
that they can't afford to do it anymore."
Killing wolves to save deer?
Even more controversial than allow-
ing the public to hunt is the proposal that
wolves be eliminated for “causing major
declines of ungulate populations,” such
as deer and elk.
That question is also being considered
by ODFW.
“Wolves can be very hard on ungulate
populations,” Akenson said. “We’re just
asking the department to look at specific
cases and keep the hunting community
as part of the equation as we move into
the future.”
As a research scientist for the Univer-
sity of Idaho in the Frank Church River
of No Return Wilderness, Akenson said
he documented an elk herd reduction of
over 50 percent in five years in one area
Somewhere between nine and 14
wolves have been illegally killed in Ore-
gon since 2007, according to police re-
ports and ODFW data. That number may
be higher, given most of the wolves tal-
lied were wearing radio-collars.
The two sides disagree about the im-
pact public hunting would have on wolf
poaching in Oregon.
Todd Nash, a rancher from Enter-
prise, said he thought allowing the public
to hunt could alleviate some of the frus-
tration rural residents have felt with the
arrival of wolves.
"You have to understand that having
wolves here at all is a large stretch for a
lot of people in the hunting and ranching
community," said Nash, who works with
the Oregon Cattlemen's Association. "I
think allowing them to have some con-
trol in the process — instead of being told
there's nothing they can do about a clear
problem — would go a long way."
Environmental groups disagreed, and
referenced a study published in the Roy-
al Society Publishing that said "allowing
wolf culling was substantially more like-
ly to increase poaching than reduce it,"
according to the authors.
"Our results suggest that granting
management flexibility for endangered
species to address illegal (behavior) may
instead promote such (behavior)," the
study abstract said.
ODFW staff will make a recommen-
dation on the issue and report to the Com-
mission.
Zach Urness has been an outdoors
writer, photographer and videographer
in Oregon for eight years. He is the author
of the book “Hiking Southern Oregon”
and
can
be
reached
at
zurness@StatesmanJournal.com
or
(503) 399-6801. Find him on Twitter at
@ZachsORoutdoors.
New Santiam Pass winter recreation maps available
ZACH URNESS
STATESMAN JOURNAL
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The U.S. Forest Service just complet-
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recreation map for the snowy play-
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The map uses the most current data to
break down the trails and routes begin-
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tiam Pass area of the Cascade Range.
The cost is $10. The maps can be pur-
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“The blue hillshading really makes
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