REGION
SATURDAY, MAY 21, 2022
THE OBSERVER — A3
Ranchers turn to bigger dogs to protect livestock
By KRISTIAN FODEN-VENCIL
Oregon Public Broadcasting
BAKER CITY — For the last
few weeks, rancher Kim Kerns has
been living in a 1970s trailer, up on
a high meadow, with 550 sheep as
they fatten up on spring grass.
Her family has used livestock
protection dogs up here since
the 1980s when she fi rst got a
Maremma guard dog from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
But that was before wolves
returned.
“We’ve actually kind of changed
the type and size of dog we use,”
she said. “We’re using a bigger and
more aggressive guard dog now
than we did in the ’80s and even
the ’90s.”
Now, her dogs are a mix of
Akbash, Kangal and Anatolian,
three massive, ancient breeds out
of Turkey. All of them can be 100
pounds or more and have a bite
pressure of 740 pounds per square
inch. Statistics vary, but a wolf’s
bite force is between 400 psi and
1,500 psi.
Kerns runs eight guard dogs at
a cost of $500 a month in feed. But
she said the animals pay their ways
by reducing the labor of controlling
sheep and reducing predator kills.
Over the last couple of decades,
Oregon and much of the West has
been conducting an enormous eco-
logical experiment by allowing
wolves to once more roam the
landscape.
For ranchers, wolves are another
predator to guard against. But
unlike coyotes, bears, bobcats or
mountain lions, wolves hunt in
packs and can be very persistent.
They’re also smart. So they learn
quickly that a sound cannon, a
bunch of fl ags, or even gunfi re into
the air aren’t a real danger. And
they return.
Kerns remembers a two-week
period last year when wolves were
picking off her sheep, one by one.
Kristian Foden-Vencil/Oregon Public Broadcasting
Shirley Shold greets her livestock protection dogs out on her ranch just east of Baker City.
Even her dogs weren’t a match.
“We weren’t getting any sleep,
the guard dogs weren’t getting any
sleep, everybody was run ragged,”
she said. “And it was terrifying.
Like it was fl at scary.”
She tried everything, from spot-
lights and electrical fences at night,
but the wolves kept coming.
“Finally we just decided that
we couldn’t take it anymore. We
moved the sheep a couple of miles,”
she said. “It seemed to be outside of
where the wolves were.”
Now, Kerns relies on the dogs
to alert her to wolves. They can
smell or see a wolf well before she
can, and they start to bark and get
agitated.
Kerns surrounds her sheep with
a sturdy electric fence at night
or moves them to another pas-
Spring chinook
season opens late
By JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
BAKER CITY —
Anglers had to wait longer
than they have in more than
a decade, but they will again
get the chance to hook a
spring chinook salmon in
the Snake River between
Hells Canyon Dam and Dug
Bar.
The Oregon Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife,
which typically has opened
the spring chinook season
in late April, announced
Tuesday, May 17, that the
season had opened that day.
The issue this year is
that few spring chinook are
expected to arrive in that
reach of the Snake River,
said Kyle Bratcher, fi sh biol-
ogist at ODFW’s Enterprise
offi ce. But the story, and the
problem that led to this situ-
ation, actually dates to 2018.
Not expecting a lot of fish
There was a meager
return of spring chinook
that year to the fi sh trap that
Idaho Power Co. operates
just below Hells Canyon
Dam, Bratcher said.
Workers harvest eggs
and sperm from those fi sh,
and the eggs are reared at
Idaho Power’s Rapid River
hatchery near Riggins,
Idaho. Two years later, when
the juvenile fi sh are known
as smolts, workers release
them so they can migrate
downriver to the Pacifi c.
Most of the hatchery
salmon make the return
journey two years later,
as 4-year-olds, Bratcher
said. Each year’s run also
includes fi sh 3 or 5 years old
as well. The younger fi sh
are known as “jacks.”
With so few adult spring
chinook returning to the
trap at Hells Canyon Dam
in 2018, offi cials from the
ODFW, the Idaho Fish and
Game Department, in con-
sultation with Native Amer-
ican tribes, decided not to
release any spring chinook
smolts below Hells Canyon
Dam in 2020.
And that means that in
2022, the year when the
majority of the surviving
smolts, now 4-year-old
adults, would return to
the Snake, the number of
hatchery spring chinook
moving upriver from Dug
Bar is projected to be low,
Bratcher said.
“While we aren’t
expecting a lot of fi sh, there
is a healthy public interest
in this fi shery and we have
decided to open so people
can take advantage of that
opportunity,” Bratcher said.
He said anglers are much
more likely to catch jack
salmon than adult fi sh this
year.
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ture. She is permitted to shoot a
wolf if it’s actively attacking. But
since they’re federally protected,
she needs really good proof. Also,
shooting a wolf in a herd would
just as likely result in the death of
a sheep.
The Oregon Department of
Agriculture has a compensation
program to reimburse ranchers.
But Kerns said it pays little and the
loss of just one ewe can cause real
damage, even though it might only
fetch $200 at market.
“There are some 5- or 6-year-old
ewes in there that know every
single camp we go to. Every single
waterhole,” Kerns said. “That ewe
is really irreplaceable in my fl ock.”
Kerns thinks the compen-
sation program just gives the
public permission to turn a
blind eye to the problem.
Unlike many ranchers, Kerns
doesn’t want to see wolves elim-
inated again. But she’d like a
quicker response from the gov-
ernment when she sends in a kill
request.
Another rancher in the Baker
City area, Shirley Shold, agrees:
“I think it would be better for
everyone, and the packs, if they
were spread out more.”
She started breeding dogs that
are suitable for herds after fi nding
freshly killed calves and lambs.
“Seeing the loss of a newborn
life was very hard,” said Shold,
who moved from Portland 12 years
ago.
“So I started thinking, we’ve got
to do something diff erent. And I
was talking to a fellow rancher and
she said, ‘If you’ve got wolves, you
want Kangal dogs.’”
So Shold got a Kangal and
Akbash pair and now breeds them
for other ranchers at about $800 a
head.
How good the dogs turn out to
be depends largely on their nature,
said Shold. Some dogs are more
nurturing and remain in the middle
of their herds. While other dogs
become perimeter dogs, scouting
outside the herd for predators.
Watching them is like watching
a sheep dog trial. Except that
instead of a human issuing orders,
these dogs follow their inner
natures.
But many traditional ranchers
aren’t convinced the dogs can keep
wolves away and, they point out,
the dogs are expensive to feed.
But Shold thinks attitudes are
changing as more wolves appear
and ranchers see others in the busi-
ness using large dogs to protect
their livestock.
“Everybody started paying
attention,” she said. “People really
started … watching the dogs
because they can observe them
from the highway, and I know it’s
making an impact. They’re seeing
that this can help.”
The dogs’ ability to manage a
sheep herd is well recognized. But
Shold wants to integrate them into
cattle herds as well.
Others aren’t so sure. They point
out that cows don’t herd together
like sheep. That means the dogs
have to patrol much larger areas.
But on Shold’s ranch, the cattle do
seem tolerant of the dogs.
Brian Ratliff , with the Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife,
said some ranchers are seeing suc-
cess with the large dog breeds.
“Livestock protection dogs will
work or have some noticeable bene-
fi ts on certain operations. So, sheep
and goats. Also in confi ned areas,
smaller pastures, with cattle,” he
said.
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