OREGON
A6 — THE OBSERVER
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2022
Environmental groups oppose $1M wolf compensation bill
House Bill 4127
introduced by Echo
Rep. Bobby Levy
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
SALEM — Environ-
mental groups oppose pro-
viding Oregon ranchers with
an additional $1 million in
compensation for wolf prob-
lems, arguing the bill sends
a bad message about the
predators.
Supporters of House Bill
4127 counter that as wolves
spread across the state, it’s
necessary to devote more
money to pay ranchers for
lost livestock and for preven-
tive measures.
“We need to ensure this
fund doesn’t go dry,” said
Rep. Bobby Levy, R-Echo,
referring to the Wolf Man-
agement Compensation and
Proactive Trust Fund created
in 2011.
“We have over twice as
many confi rmed depreda-
tions as we saw in 2020,”
Levy said, noting that wolves
killed 41 cows, 23 sheep, nine
goats and a guard dog last
year.
Based on previous levels
of compensation, that means
ranchers would need more
than $750,000 in compensa-
tion for last year’s confi rmed
losses, she said.
For the current bien-
nium, Oregon has $400,000
ODFW/Contributed Photo
Environmental nonprofi ts oppose a bill to provide ranchers with an additional $1 million in
compensation for wolf problems.
per year in federal and state
money authorized for wolf
compensation, said Jonathan
Sandau, special assistant to
the director at the Oregon
Department of Agriculture.
On average over the past
three years, the wolf com-
pensation fund has annually
received $425,000 in requests
and paid out $185,000,
Sandau said.
At least 30% of the funds
must be dedicated to pre-
vention, but usually that pro-
portion is much higher, hov-
ering at about 70% per year,
he said.
Coalitions of environ-
mental nonprofi t groups
have come out against HB
4127, claiming it will pro-
vide funds for missing live-
stock that weren’t neces-
sarily killed by wolves.
The Oregon Conserva-
tion Network, a coalition of
30 organizations, opposes
“throwing more money at
missing livestock,” partly
because it will confl ate way-
ward animals with wolf dep-
redations, said Julie McGraw,
the network’s representative,
at a recent House Agriculture,
Land Use and Water Com-
mittee hearing.
“The more it appears
that wolves are killing live-
stock, the worse it is going to
be in terms of the quality of
the relationship with people
trying to raise livestock,” she
said.
The number of livestock
that have allegedly gone
missing due to wolves far
surpasses the number of con-
fi rmed depredations, said
Julie Moser, wildlife program
coordinator for the Oregon
Wild nonprofi t. Meanwhile,
livestock go missing for any
number of reasons, so those
claims for compensation
aren’t verifi able, Moser said.
“Blaming wolves for any
unaccounted livestock not
only superfi cially infl ates
wolf-livestock confl ict but
it perpetuates a problematic
stigma about wolves,” she
said.
Critics of the bill also
argued the wolf compensa-
tion fund is prone to misuse
and should be reformed,
while adding more money to
it will create a “moral hazard”
by encouraging ranchers not
to look for missing animals.
“Making the fund easier to
abuse is not a solution,” said
Bethany Cotton, conserva-
tion director for the Cascadia
Wildlands nonprofi t.
The bill’s supporters
pointed out that despite the
critics’ focus on missing live-
stock, the added funding
would go to the wolf compen-
sation program as a whole.
“There’s a lot of conjec-
ture on this but there are
really no facts,” said Rep.
David Brock-Smith, R-Port
Orford.
With wolf depredations
reaching a record level in
2021, it’s worth adequately
funding the wolf compensa-
tion program to encourage
acceptance of state policies
for the species, said Rep.
Mark Owens, R-Crane.
“It’s a trend that’s starting
to possibly erode the social
tolerance we started to
develop with the wolf man-
agement plan,” Owens
said of rising depredations.
“Nothing in this bill changes
the wolf management plan.
Nothing in this bill harms
wolves. In fact, this bill is
there to support social tol-
erance of wolf interactions
with our public.”
Wolves cause problems
for the livestock industry
that go beyond depredations,
such as lower conception
rates and weight loss, said
Todd Nash, president of the
Oregon Cattlemen’s Associ-
ation and a Wallowa County
commissioner.
“If we paid for the
missing livestock and the
confi rmed depredations, it
wouldn’t come close to cap-
turing the cost incurred by
ranchers,” Nash said. “If
there’s going to be fraud
in the system, the fraud is
that we have a compensa-
tion system and there are not
funds available.”
Oregon to receive $260 million in wildfi re recovery funding for federal forests
By CASSANDRA PROFITA
Oregon Public Broadcasting
SALEM — The U.S.
Forest Service in Oregon
will be getting more than
$260 million in federal
disaster funding to help
with wildfi re recovery.
The money is part of a
$1.1 billion disaster assis-
tance bill that passed last
year to help regions across
the country recover from a
variety of natural disasters
over the last three years.
Oregon’s Sens. Jeff
Merkley and Ron Wyden,
both Democrats, supported
the Extending Government
Funding and Delivering
Emergency Assistance Act
of 2021, which passed in
September with more than a
billion dollars in funding for
recovery eff orts after wild-
fi res, hurricanes, tornadoes
and other natural disasters.
More than a million
acres of land across Oregon
burned in the Labor Day
wildfi res in 2020, calling
attention to the need to
manage trees and brush in
federal forests to reduce the
risk of wildfi re.
In a statement, Merkley
said the additional wildfi re
recovery funds announced
Wednesday are a direct
result of his work as
chairman of an appropri-
ations subcommittee that
makes decisions on funding
the Forest Service.
“Over the last three
years, Oregon’s forests and
surrounding communi-
ties have been devastated
by catastrophic wildfi res,
adversely impacting Ore-
gonians, our lands, wild-
life, and waters,” Merkley
said. “This funding will
fi ll a critical gap in wildfi re
response and recovery by
investing in restoring these
landscapes, rebuilding trails
and recreational access
points, and helping grow a
more resilient forest.”
Wyden said in a state-
ment that, “restoring for-
ests’ resiliency to reduce fi re
risks” will be a signifi cant
part of Oregon’s recovery
from extensive wildfi res.
“Oregonians know in
painful detail how wild-
fi res have ripped a destruc-
tive path through our com-
munities statewide in recent
years,” Wyden said in a
statement. “I’m glad these
federal funds will help our
state recover from these
disasters.”
Additionally, the Biden
administration recently
announced a $3 billion
plan to reduce wildfi re risk
through forest management
actions that would remove
fl ammable material through
selective logging and pre-
scribed burning.
The U.S. Forest Ser-
vice did not immediately
respond to a request for
comment.
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