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CapitalPress.com
May 8, 2015
Wolves
Wolf killed in W. Wash. may have roamed from afar
Adult female
unlikely to have
strayed from
nearest pack
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
An adult female hit and
killed on Interstate 90 in east-
ern King County is likely the
first wild gray wolf found
west of the Washington Cas-
cades in decades and may
have been wandering across
the state looking for food and
a mate, state and federal wild-
life officials said.
The animal was struck,
mostly likely by a large truck,
according to U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service spokesman
Brent Lawrence, while cross-
ing the highway April 27 at
Milepost 41, near North Bend.
State game officials had re-
ceived a report of a wolf in the
Photo courtesy of Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
In this 2011 file photo taken by the Washington Department of Fish
and Wildlife, a Teanaway pack wolf recovers after being tranquil-
ized and collared. A wolf was killed earlier this week on Interstate
90 west of the Cascade Range.
median, but by the time they
arrived, the animal had been
killed, Washington Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife’s
wolf policy lead, Dave Ware,
said.
The carcass was taken to
the USFWS lab in Ashland,
Ore., for DNA testing. The
results may not be known for
several weeks, Lawrence said.
Ware said agents who saw
the remains thought it was a
wolf.
The animal was approx-
imately 2 years old, the
prime age for a lone wolf to
disperse, he said.
WDFW doubts the animal
strayed from the Teanaway
Pack, which occupies territory
about 50 miles away in Kitti-
tas County. Teanaway wolves,
the most western of the state’s
16 known wolf packs, are
gray, while the animal killed
on I-90 was black.
Ware said it’s more likely
the animal came from a pack
in northeast Washington or
from one even farther east
in the Rockies. “Long, long
movements are pretty com-
mon for wolves,” he said.
Although WDFW had not
received any recent sightings
of wolves in the area, Ware
said he wasn’t surprised by
the I-90 incident. The agency
anticipates wolves will move
west as the population grows
in the northeast corner of the
state, he said.
Wolves were once com-
mon throughout Washington,
but were exterminated by the
1930s. In the past decade,
wolves from Canada and the
Rockies have crossed into the
state.
WDFW estimated that at
the end of 2014 Washington
had at least 68 wolves, with
56 in Eastern Washington and
12 in Central Washington.
Under current state policy,
wolves will remain a pro-
tected species in Washington
until reproducing populations
are distributed in three zones.
I-90 forms the boundary be-
tween the North Cascades and
South Cascades zones.
No wolves has been con-
firmed in the South Cascades,
though WDFW has received
several credible sightings of
wolves there, Ware said.
WDFW recently included
a photo of a wolf in Klickitat
County in a state report on
wolves.
Ranchers and public of-
ficials in the northeast say
they’re suffering economic
losses while the rest of the
state has sacrificed noth-
ing to return gray wolves to
Washington. Lawmakers are
considering a bill to rework
the wolf plan to address the
concentration of wolves and
livestock predation.
A conservation group said
the I-90 incident was an en-
couraging sign that wolves
are spreading out.
“This wolf’s journey west
is what wolf recovery and res-
toration should look like in
Washington state,” Defenders
of Wildlife Northwest director
Shawn Cantrell said in a writ-
ten statement. “I look forward
to seeing other wolves travel
across the Cascades where
there are vast stretches of un-
occupied and excellent wolf
habitat.”
The animal was hit in an
unpopulated stretch of I-90
about 15 miles from homes,
said North Bend resident
Jim Gildersleeve, secretary
of the Upper Snolqualm-
ie Valley Elk Management
Group, a nonprofit organi-
zation.
Reps say wolf management
should be turned over to states
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
U.S. Reps. Dan Newhouse
of Washington, Greg Walden
of Oregon and Chris Stewart
of Utah introduced legislation
in April that would take gray
wolves off the federal endan-
gered species list in their states
and turn management of wolves
over to state agencies.
In a separate letter to De-
partment of Interior Secretary
Sally Jewell, Newhouse and 36
other representatives, all but one
Republicans, asked that gray
wolves be delisted nationally,
as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service proposed in 2013. At
that time, the wildlife service
said gray wolves didn’t warrant
listing because they are not a
distinct species as defined in the
Endangered Species Act. The
ruling has not been implement-
ed.
The letter to Jewell said the
“uncontrolled and unmanaged
growth of wolf populations”
has had a devastating effect
on ranching and hunting. The
failure of USFWS to follow
through on its 2013 proposal has
decreased the “social tolerance”
for wolves and hurts states’
ability to manage wolves, New-
house said in the letter.
“We believe that state gov-
ernments are fully qualified to
responsibly manage gray wolf
populations and are better able
to meet the needs of local com-
munities, ranchers, livestock
and wildlife populations,” New-
Courtesy of Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
OR 22, a male wolf that separated from the Umatilla River Pack in
February, is pictured walking through a Northeast Oregon forest
on Jan. 26. The lone wolf has recently been spotted by several
farmers near Adrian in Malheur County.
Wolf’s arrival in Malheur
County concerns ranchers
Courtesy of ODFW
An Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist collars wolf OR33, a 2-year-old adult male from
the Imnaha pack, Feb. 25, 2015 in Wallowa County. Larger wild animals are typically blindfolded while
immobilized to protect their eyes and to help calm them.
house said.
The legislation and letter in-
dicate the continuing political,
social and economic strife that
accompany government efforts
to recover species on the brink.
In the West, wolf populations
have rebounded and spread
rapidly since the mid-1990s,
but ranchers believe they’ve
unfairly shouldered the burden
through attacks on livestock and
the cost of non-lethal defensive
measures.
Gray wolves are already fed-
erally delisted in Idaho and in
the eastern thirds of Oregon and
Washington. The Oregon De-
partment of Fish and Wildlife is
considering whether to remove
gray wolves from the state en-
dangered species list; the Wash-
ington Department of Fish and
Wildlife issued a letter backing
Newhouse’s proposal.
A spokeswoman for a con-
servation group called New-
house’s idea “appalling” and
said Congress should not be de-
ciding which animals get endan-
gered species protection.
Amaroq Weiss of the Cen-
ter for Biological Diversity said
Utah has no wolves beyond a
few spotted over the years, and
the populations in Oregon and
Washington are “small and still
in the early stages of recovery.”
Weiss, the Center’s West
Coast wolf organizer, said state
management of wolves has
not turned out well. No state
has shown it can stand up to
the “livestock industry and the
sports-hunting industry who
want to see wolf populations
once again eradicated or re-
duced to bare bones numbers,”
she said in an email.
Weiss said studies have
shown non-lethal control of
wolves has greater long-term
effect than killing them, and that
elk and deer populations remain
stable in areas where wolf packs
roam. She said livestock losses
from wolves are a fraction of
losses from other causes.
“Put all of these pieces togeth-
er and it is clear that states are not
prepared or not inclined to be
stewards of the public’s wolves
at this point in time,” Weiss said.
LEGAL
CHERRY AVENUE STORAGE
2680 Cherry Ave. NE
Salem, OR 97301
(503) 399-7454
Sat., May 16, 2015 • 10 a.m.
• Unit 7
Cheryl Fries
• Unit 41
Mike San Felipe
• Unit 161
Tonya Newman
• Unit 217
Tiffanee Valenzuela
• Unit C-2
Pete Fitzpatrick
Cherry Avenue Storage
reserves the right to refuse
any and all bids
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
ADRIAN, Ore. — The
arrival of a lone wolf in Mal-
heur County has ranchers in
the state’s top cattle producing
county concerned.
“It’s plum serious,” said
Malheur County Cattlemen’s
Association President Chris
Christensen. “There’s nothing
positive from a cattleman’s
standpoint in the fact that a wolf
showed up.”
The wolf, which separated
from a Northeast Oregon pack
in February, entered the coun-
ty April 10 and has been living
mostly in sagebrush country
south of Vale and west of Adri-
an.
The adult male wolf, which
has a tracking collar and is
known as OR22, has been seen
by several farmers during brief
forays into farm country.
“He’s started moving
around a little bit more and has
gone a few new places but he’s
still in that same general area,”
said Philip Milburn, a district
wildlife biologist in the Ore-
gon Department of Fish and
Wildlife’s Ontario office.
Milburn said two cow car-
casses were found in the area
last week, which might be part
of the reason he’s staying in
that region.
ODFW officials removed
the cow carcasses, which are
believed to have died before
the wolf found them, Milburn
said.
“There’s no evidence
the wolf was involved (in
the cows’ deaths),” he said.
“There’s still no evidence he’s
killed anything since he’s been
here.”
Christensen said ranchers
should ensure their dead an-
imals are disposed of quickly
and properly.
“They don’t want to give
him any easy meals,” he said.
“That’s probably why it’s stay-
ing around.”
This is the first time a
wolf has stayed in the coun-
ty for more than a brief peri-
od, ODFW officials said, but
there have been multiple wolf
sightings in the county and
confirmed wolf tracks have
been found in several places,
including at the Oregon State
University research station a
few miles outside of Ontario.
OSU livestock exten-
sion agent Sergio Arispe said
OR22’s arrival has caused
some concern among the coun-
ty’s 150 beef cattle producers,
especially since the industry
realizes it’s probably only a
matter of time before wolves
establish a permanent presence
in the area.
At today’s cattle prices, a
producer can lose a lot of mon-
ey from a single wolf kill, he
said.
“It’s not a matter of if they’re
going to be here, but when,”
Arispe said. “There is some big
concern from cattle producers
who are trying to make a living.”
Milburn said the Northwest
part of the county, in particular,
contains what could potentially
be some good wolf habitat.
“(There is) a fairly high po-
tential of wolves settling in that
area eventually,” he said.
Christensen said Malheur
County ranchers need to start
learning from their colleagues
in Northeast Oregon on how to
operate with wolves present in
the area.
Legal 18-2-2/#4
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LEGAL
LEGAL
LEGAL
OREGON TECHNICAL
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
MEETING (OTAC)
WHAT: OTAC Meeting
WHEN: Thursday, May 28,
2015 @ 12:30pm-4:00pm
WHERE: OSU North Willamette
Research and Extension
Center
15210 NE Miley Road,
Aurora, OR 97002
503-678-1264
For more information, or to
arrange special accommoda-
tions for meeting attendees,
please contact Laura Gay,
Oregon NRCS State Office,
503-414-3200.
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The Oregon Orchardgrass
Seed Producers Commission
will hold a public hearing on
the Commission’s proposed
2015-16 budget on June 3,
2015, 7:30 a.m. at the Elmer’s
Restaurant, 2802 Santiam
Highway SE, Albany, Oregon.
Any person wishing to
comment on the budget is
welcome to do so either orally
or in writing. A copy of the
proposed budget is available
for public inspection during
normal business hours at the
commission office located at
6745 SW Hampton Street,
Suite 101, Portland, Oregon.
The Budget hearing for the
2015-2016 fiscal year for the
Oregon Sweet Cherry Com-
mission will be held at the
Columbia Gorge Community
College, Room 1.162, Building
1 located at 400 E Scenic Dr. in
The Dalles, OR. The budget
hearing will open at 2:15 p.m.
on Thursday, May 21, 2015. A
copy of the proposed budget
can be reviewed at the Hood
River Extension Office office,
3005
Experiment
Station
Drive, Hood River, OR during
normal business hours or by
contacting the OSCC office at
541-386-5761.
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