Opinion
A4
Saturday, December 11, 2021
OUR VIEW
Increase
budget for
ranchers’
wolf losses
he Oregon Legislature has acknowledged that the
state has a responsibility to partially compensate
ranchers for livestock killed by wolves.
Lawmakers created the wolf compensation grant pro-
gram a decade ago.
It was a necessary step. Ranchers, after all, aren’t
responsible for wolves returning to Oregon — indeed,
many of them objected to the state allowing wolves to
migrate into Oregon from Idaho, starting in 1999. (Oregon
never transplanted wolves into the state.)
But some ranchers, unlike the vast majority of Ore-
gonians for whom the presence of wolves has no direct
eff ect, have sustained fi nancial losses due to wolves.
The money the Legislature has allocated to the pro-
gram is a paltry sum that hasn’t been suffi cient to cover
the actual losses of livestock as well as other costs
ranchers have borne, including installing fencing and
taking other steps to prevent wolves from attacking cattle,
sheep and other domestic animals.
During 2020, for instance, the Oregon Department
of Agriculture, which administers the wolf compen-
sation program, distributed $130,164 among 12 coun-
ties, including Baker. That was just 37% of the amount
requested. In 2019 the state awarded $251,529, or 58% of
requests.
For the period Feb. 1, 2020, through Jan. 31, 2021,
Union County received $1,330 for death/injury to live-
stock that occurred in 2019. This was the total requested
for these categories based on applications received from
local producers. An additional $20,000 was requested for
depredation measures. The county received $17,330 of the
requested amount. All received funds were distributed to
local ranchers.
In Baker County for the same period, the county
requested $47,708 from the state and received $32,708 —
68%. The county distributed almost all of that to local
ranchers (the county kept $495 as an administrative fee).
One Eastern Oregon lawmaker wants to boost those
percentages. Rep. Bobby Levy, a Republican from Echo,
in Umatilla County, plans to introduce a bill when the
Legislature convenes Feb. 1, 2022, allocating $1 mil-
lion for the compensation program for the next two-year
budget cycle.
Statewide in 2021, ODFW has confi rmed 87 animals
killed or injured by wolves: 51 cattle, 28 sheep, six goats
and two guard dogs. That is up by more than double over
2020, when 32 animals — 28 cattle, two llamas and two
guard dogs — were attacked or killed by wolves.
Compared with Oregon’s state budget, the million dol-
lars Levy is proposing to spend for wolf compensation
barely qualifi es as a pittance. And it’s almost certainly not
enough to fairly compensate ranchers for the loss of their
livestock and to help them deter wolf attacks — which
everyone, those who want wolves in Oregon and those
who don’t, agree is the ultimate goal.
But boosting the compensation budget by $1 million is
a solid start to better addressing a problem that, based on
2021, is growing rather than receding.
T
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Where have all the Republicans gone?
GEORGE
MEAD
OTHER VIEWS
am a progressive Republican,
a rare breed, one who “favors
or advocates progress, change,
improvement, or reform, as opposed
to wishing to maintain things as they
are.”
This harkens back to Teddy
Roosevelt.
Albert Quie, former governor of
Minnesota, Jan. 4, 1979, to Jan. 3,
1983, and, member of the Congress
House of Representatives, Feb. 18,
1958, to Jan. 3, 1979, said: “We are
willing to let the federal govern-
ment assume primary responsibility
for defense and other priorities for
which states are not equipped. The
problem in the last 15 years or so is
that well-meaning federal offi cials
have not recognized the distinction
between ‘federal’ and ‘national.’
They have often forgotten that edu-
cation is a partnership.”
The rub, of course, is that more
and more federal involvement comes
by way of mandates without the dol-
lars to comply. Or, dollars are pro-
vided with so many strings attached
that unique state and local circum-
stances get ignored. Laws and reg-
ulations are written to apply to a
mythical “average” state.
The Declaration of Independence
states: “We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are cre-
ated equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalien-
I
able Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Hap-
piness. That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among
Men, deriving their just powers from
the consent of the governed.”
The Constitution of the United
States says: “We the People of the
United States, in Order to form a
more perfect Union, establish Jus-
tice, insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defense,
promote the general Welfare,
and secure the Blessings of Lib-
erty to ourselves and our Posterity,
do ordain and establish this Con-
stitution for the United States of
America.”
Where have all the Republicans
gone? They certainly do not appear
to be interested is almost all the
things the two documents state. Lis-
tening to the Republican career pol-
iticians speaking in all manner of
venues, I haven’t heard comments
from them about “domestic tran-
quility” or “the general welfare.” I
have seen the equivalent of plastic
bobblehead dolls nodding violently
to their quasi-deity as if that mat-
ters. Nothing they are anxious about,
or advocate, seem to have anything
to do with forming a “more perfect
union” or “establishing justice.”
Public schooling started very
early in colonial times by the cit-
izens. This was then followed
by the states, counties, cities and
towns long before any politician sit-
ting around in Washington, D.C.,
decided they knew better than those
folk what primary education ought
to be. Somehow, the folk in Wash-
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ington, D.C., felt they knew more
about creating public schooling than
all the folk in the original colonies,
the states, counties, towns and cities
who did that. Instead, the public
school systems had to be homoge-
nized like the milk we currently buy,
instead of letting the cream fl oat to
the top.
At the same time all the aspects
of higher education were created by
the same folk outside of Washington,
D.C. The total of institutions created
are 1,714 — trade schools to doc-
torate universities.
Unfortunately the private and
public institutions have allowed
greed to overwhelm their good sense
as they accepted massive amounts
of Pell grants and jacked up the
their tuition because of the mas-
sive infl ow of dollars. The program
was planned as a feel-good program
with no strings attached vis a vis the
cost of tuition. The usual lack of not
asking what the unintended results
might bring became the ever higher
costs for education. Congress is still
willing to add ever increasing dol-
lars into the program with the same
lack of planning. Where have all the
Republicans gone?
It would appear that the national
party is more interested in the cre-
ation of zombie-politicians, infected
by the T-virus, who wander about
moaning and groaning rather than
addressing those actions stated in
either the Declaration of Indepen-
dence or the Constitution.
———
George Mead, a retired anthro-
pologist, lives in La Grande.
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