STATE
6A — THE OBSERVER
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2019
New wildlife fence aims to keep wolves out of ranch
■ Crews wrap 276-acre
pasture in 3-mile-long
fence in SW Oregon
By George Plaven
Capital Press
PROSPECT — Ted Birdseye
has tried seemingly everything to
keep the wolves out of his ranch in
southwest Oregon.
Fladry, guard dogs and even
infl atable dancing tube men —
similar to those seen outside of
used car lots — have all failed to
keep the predators at bay, Birdseye
said. Now a $46,000 wildlife fence
might be the last hope for protect-
ing his cattle in an area where gray
wolves remain listed as a federally
endangered species.
Crews fi nished installing the
5-foot-tall, 3-mile-long fence on
Nov. 4, wrapping around 276 acres
of pasture at the Mill-Mar Ranch
about 35 miles north of Medford.
The property borders the Rogue
River-Siskiyou National Forest,
home of the Rogue Pack which has
at least six known wolves as of 2018.
Made from recycled steel posts
spaced 90 feet apart, with eight
strands of high-tensile electric wire
running between 1-inch fi berglass
rods, Birdseye said anything that
touches the fence “is supposed
to get the shock of its life.” It is
powered by a 3-foot-by-3-foot solar
panel and battery.
“My big concern is I just hope it
works,” Birdseye said. “If it doesn’t
work, I don’t know what the other
options are.”
Birdseye bought the Mill-Mar
Ranch near the small community
of Prospect roughly four years ago.
The sixth-generation rancher has
been frustrated by the Rogue Pack
repeatedly attacking and killing his
livestock and pets, including eight
calves and two guard dogs.
Whereas the state can authorize
shooting wolves that meet the
defi nition of “chronic depredation”
in Eastern Oregon, the animals are
still listed as endangered and man-
aged by the feds west of highways
395, 78 and 95.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service has worked extensively
with Birdseye to set up non-lethal
deterrents such as fl ashing lights,
alarm boxes and fl adry — lines of
rope strung up along fences with
red fl ags that fl ap in the wind,
intended to scare away wolves.
Defenders of Wildlife, a nonprofi t
environmental group, also donated
two neon green and yellow waving
tubes to stand guard over Bird-
seye’s cattle in February. Yet the
Rogue Pack keeps coming back,
he said, with the latest incident in
March where the wolves took down
a 5-month-old, 400-pound calf.
In response, Birdseye decided
to build a more sturdy wildlife
fence around the entire pasture.
The project received a $25,000
grant from the USFWS, as well as
$15,000 from the Jackson County
wolf depredation compensation
committee.
Counties are awarded money
from the Oregon Department of
Agriculture’s Wolf Depredation
Compensation and Financial Assis-
tance Grant Program for non-lethal
deterrents.
A second environmental advo-
cacy group, the Klamath-Siskiyou
Wildlands Center, or KS Wild for
short, also launched a GoFundMe
campaign to raise $6,000 for the
fence, which it accomplished over
three weeks in June.
Joseph Vaile, who until recently
served as executive director of the
Ashland-based group, said the Mill-
Mar Ranch is at a crossroads of
wolf movement in the region.
“We felt it was a very important
place to put some energy,” Vaile
said.
What’s more, Vaile said he hopes
the effort will show that ranchers
and conservationists can put their
differences aside and work to come
up with solutions to protect wolves,
while ensuring that producers can
keep their operations profi table.
“It’s something that we need to
do a lot more of, I think,” Vaile said.
The Rogue Pack has garnered
much attention since it was estab-
lished by Oregon’s famous wan-
dering wolf, OR-7, traveling more
than 1,000 miles from the Wallowa
Mountains to the southern Cascade
Range. The pack was fi rst recog-
nized in 2014, and has produced
pups every year since then, accord-
ing to the Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife.
O REGON IN B RIEF
From wire reports
Oregon tribal hemp
plan under review by
federal offi cials
BEND — The Confeder-
ated Tribes of Warm Springs
has submitted a plan to
the federal government to
administer hemp production
on its lands.
The Bulletin reported
Tuesday that if the U.S.
Department of Agriculture
approves the plan, the hemp
jobs could fi ll employment
gaps caused by the closure of
tribal entities.
Warm Springs is one of 11
tribes listed on the USDA
website with a hemp plan
under review.
Offi cials say the reserva-
tion has been considering
some form of cannabis busi-
ness since it became legal in
Oregon in 2015.
Portland must stop
charging excessive
public record fees
PORTLAND — A Mult-
nomah County judge has
ruled that Portland must
stop charging excessive
fees for routine email and
document searches to fulfi ll
public records requests.
The Oregonian/Oregon-
Live reports Circuit Court
Judge Shelley D. Russell’s
ruled Monday that the city’s
current system for determin-
ing records search costs is
unreasonable.
Russell’s order stems from
a September 2018 lawsuit
fi led by attorney and activist
Alan Kessler.
Crater Lake road
system listed in
historic register
CRATER LAKE — Of-
fi cials say the Army Corps of
Engineers Road System at
Crater Lake National Park
is among Oregon’s latest en-
tries in the National Register
of Historic Places.
Park offi cials said Tuesday
that the National Park Ser-
vice accepted the nomination
Aug. 12.
The nomination centered
on a previously little-known
effort by the Army Corps
of Engineers in highway
engineering and construction
that happened from 1910 to
1919 in the park.
The Army Corps of
Engineers Road System, a
precursor to the historic Rim
Drive, is signifi cant for its
association with the earliest
period of highway engineer-
ing in Oregon.
The road system was the
fi rst federally funded and su-
pervised highway project in
Oregon and is the only road
project in Oregon attributed
to the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers.
Parents who starved
5-year-old daughter
to death sentenced
BEND — Parents who
starved their 5-year-old
daughter to death have been
sentenced to life in prison.
The Bulletin reported
33-year-old Sacora Horn-Gar-
cia and 35-year-old Estevan
Garcia were sentenced Mon-
day in Deschutes County Cir-
cuit Court in the 2016 death
of Maliyha Hope Garcia.
The couple was found
guilty by a jury of murder by
abuse and criminal mistreat-
ment after a weekslong trial.
They’ll be eligible for parole
in 25 years.
Maliyha was adopted by
the couple shortly after the
girl was born and tested posi-
tive for methamphetamines.
She weighed 24 pounds at
the time of her death.
Garcia expressed regret
but stopped short of admit-
ting intentionally starving
his daughter. Horn-Garcia
said she’s not a murderer but
a person who made a terrible
mistake by not taking the
child to the hospital. She also
blamed the media for mak-
ing her look bad.
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