July 31, 2015
CapitalPress.com
3
WDFW: One more kill will Cranberry harvest
put Dirty Shirt wolves at risk hinges on fall rain
Capital Press
Hozomeen
Border pack*
Bellingham
Vancouver
NOTE: Polygons
Island represent
estimated ranges for
known wolf packs with
radio-collared animals.
Circles represent generic
ranges for packs that have
no collared wolves.
* Dens
20
Lookout
5
Seattle
Whitestone
97
Teanaway
90
2
2
Huckleberry
Wenatchee
Tacoma
Wenatchee
90
195
C
Yakima
m
olu b
395
River
WASHINGTON
5
82
er
Tucannon
Walla
Walla
bia River
C o l um
Source: Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife
“It shouldn’t be the responsibil-
ity of the livestock producer to
manage problem wolves.
“It’s just a tough, tough situa-
tion and at the end of the day, the
Department of Fish and Wildlife
is the responsible party,” Field
said. “Let’s have the profession-
als come in and do this.”
It’s unclear what WDFW
will do if depredations continue
and producers decline a permit
to take matters into their own
hands. Efforts to reach Martorel-
lo for further comment were un-
successful.
Defenders of Wildlife’s
Northwest director, Shawn
Cantrell, who’s also on the wolf
advisory group, said WDFW
should continue to seek out
non-lethal means to prevent
depredations. “We’re really
pleased with the approach the
department has taken,” he said.
Cantrell said that if another
depredation occurs, he hopes
the WDFW will pause to con-
sider whether other non-lethal
R iv
nake
Pasco
N
Vancouver
Spokane
90
Olympia
20 miles
Diamond
Carpenter
Ridge
Nc’icn
2
outside of Washington
101
Smackout Salmo
Wedge
Goodman
Profanity
Meadows
20
Strawberry
Dirty
Shirt
Okanogan
ia
If a northeast Washington
wolf pack kills anymore live-
stock, state wildlife managers
will offer ranchers a permit to
shoot two wolves, according
to the Department of Fish and
Wildlife’s wolf policy coordina-
tor, Donny Martorello.
The permit to kill would be
limited to the producer’s fami-
ly and employees, who would
not be allowed to hunt or bait
wolves. The wolves would
have to be seen near the cows.
WDFW staff working with the
producer also could shoot if they
encounter wolves.
Martorello outlined the per-
mit’s conditions in an email
Tuesday to WDFW’s wolf advi-
sory group.
The Dirty Shirt pack, which
has at least six members, killed
three adult cows and a calf
grazing on U.S. Forest Service
land between July 5 and 10 in
Stevens County, according to
WDFW. There are two ranchers
with cattle grazing in the area.
The Stevens County Cattle-
men’s Association has called
for WDFW to lethally remove
wolves in response to the dep-
redations.
Washington
Cattlemen’s
Association Executive Vice
President Jack Field, a member
of the wolf advisory group, said
Wednesday that some ranchers
may accept a permit to kill, but
others may be wary of drawing
unwanted attention from wolf
advocates.
“It’s certainly a tool, but it
puts the requirement right on the
back of the producer,” he said.
Confirmed pack
(As of March 6)
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
measures can be tried before
following through on offering a
permit to shoot wolves.
The Dirty Shirt pack has one
of the state’s few known breed-
ing pairs, Cantrell noted. “For
us, that’s a compelling reason
to say, ‘OK, let’s make sure we
have exhausted all the options,’”
he said.
In his email, Martorello said
WDFW was continuing to help
producers protect livestock with
range riders.
WDFW describes the ground
as rugged, with steep canyons,
brushy draws and forested areas.
The next step described
by Martorello falls short of
measures WDFW eventual-
ly took in 2012 and 2014 to
stop other packs in Stevens
County from attacking cattle
and sheep.
Most recently, WDFW con-
tracted last September with the
USDA Wildlife Services to
shoot a wolf in the Huckleberry
pack.
The Dirty Shirt pack roams
in the eastern one-third of Wash-
ington, where wolves are not a
federally endangered species.
The wolves are a state-protect-
ed species, but the state’s wolf
plan allows for shooting wolves
when non-lethal measures fail to
stop depredations.
Elsewhere in the state, a
yearling Angus killed by wolves
was found dead July 16 in Cen-
tral Washington, where wolves
are protected by the federal En-
dangered Species Act.
Wolves there are not candi-
dates for lethal removal, accord-
ing to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
The Angus was in a herd
grazing on Washington Depart-
ment of Natural Resources land
in Kittitas County. Conservation
Northwest was helping fund a
range rider hired by the rancher.
The organization issued a state-
ment saying its range-rider pro-
gram has been successful over
the past three years.
For now, berries are
enjoying the sun
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
LONG BEACH, Wash. — A
cranberry crop ripening in the sun
could be Washington’s best in
years, but growers are anxious for
rain to resume before bogs need to
be fl ooded for the harvest.
“It’ll be a major concern by
the middle of September,” Long
Beach Peninsula cranberry
farmer Steve Gray said. “There
better be a rain.”
Cranberries illustrate that
there’s an upside and downside
to the unusually hot and dry
weather this summer in Western
Washington.
Clouds usually hold yields
along Washington’s southwest
coast below other cranberry pro-
ducing states, such as Wiscon-
sin, Massachusetts, New Jersey
and Oregon.
Washington’s cranberry bogs
in 2014 yielded 975 pounds per
acre, while Wisconsin yielded
2,395 pounds, according to the
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Oregon’s harvest average 1,628
pounds per acre.
Washington State University
research scientist Kim Patten,
stationed in Long Beach, called
recent harvests “embarrassingly
low.”
This year, however, Wash-
ington cranberries were set up
for high yields by an excellent
pollination season as bees were
active during a warm and dry
late spring and early summer,
Patten said.
“This will be the best year,
theoretically, we’ll have in my
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Washington State University
research scientist Kim Patten
stands July 28 in a cranberry
fi eld tinged reddish-brown by
the heat at the WSU cranberry
research center in Long Beach.
Cranberry growers hope fall
rains will supply enough water
to fl ood bogs for the harvest.
lifetime,” he said “If we could
get weather like this every year,
we wouldn’t give Wisconsin a
run for their money, but at least
we could make a living.”
The downside, so far, has been
the potential for heat damage. At
WSU’s cranberry research bogs,
an irrigation valve malfunctioned
on a hot day, and some vines died,
turning a reddish-brown in an oth-
erwise green fi eld.
“You see a lot of heat-stress
damage out there (on peninsula
bogs). Not every farm, but more
than I’d like to see,” Patten said.
A bigger concern is how
much rain the region will re-
ceive by the time the harvest
begins in late September.
Outlook murky for port productivity proposals
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Key port productivity lan-
guage has been removed from
legislation pending before Con-
gress, casting doubt on the out-
look for other bills intended to
prevent shipping slowdowns.
Initially proposed as the
standalone “Port Transparency
Bill” — S. 1298 — the legisla-
tion was recently folded into a
broader transportation funding
package the Senate is expected
to vote on imminently.
Under the original language,
the bill would have required
ports to submit monthly pro-
ductivity reports during labor
negotiations between terminal
operators and the longshore-
men’s union.
The goal was to document
whether longshoremen were
engaging in work slowdowns,
as they were accused of doing
during recent labor talks on the
West Coast.
Elaine Thompson/Associated Press
Loaded container trucks line up at a gate at the Port of Seattle in
this fi le photo from on Feb. 17. Port productivity language was re-
moved from legislation pending before Congress, casting doubt on
the outlook for other bills intended to prevent shipping slowdowns.
Agricultural shippers report-
ed sustaining millions of dollars
in losses due to port congestion,
which they blamed in part on the
longshoremen’s alleged tactics.
While other aspects of the
Port Transparency Bill were
included in the latest version of
the transportation funding leg-
islation, provisions requiring
monthly reports during labor
negotiations were left out.
Two more stringent bills
geared toward preventing port
slowdowns have also been pro-
posed in Congress, but the fail-
ure of the productivity tracking
proposal raises questions about
their chances of success.
“If the most modest of the
three bills encountered such op-
position, can these bills pass?”
asked Peter Friedmann, exec-
utive director of the Agricul-
tural Transportation Coalition,
which represents farm export-
ers.
Another bill introduced in
the Senate, the Preventing La-
bor Union Slowdowns Act — S.
1630 — would prohibit slow-
downs under the National Labor
Relations Act.
The third bill, the Protecting
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Key provision left
out of pending
federal legislation
Orderly and Responsible Transit
Shipments Act — S. 1519 —
would give state governors the
authority under the Taft-Hart-
ley Act to order unions back to
work in the event of a slowdown
or strike, if the U.S. president
doesn’t take action.
These proposals face a tough
road ahead, but the National Re-
tail Federation and other groups
that depend on ports will con-
tinue pushing for reform, said
Jonathan Gold, vice president of
supply chain and customs policy
for the organization.
“We think something needs
to change when it comes to
these labor negotiations,” he
said. “These issues are not going
away on the congestion.”
The International Longshore
and Warehouse Union point-
ed out that it was joined by the
U.S. Maritime Alliance, which
represents East Coast terminal
operators, and U.S. Labor Sec-
retary Thomas Perez in object-
ing to the proposals.
ROP-31-3-2/#7
By DON JENKINS
Known Washington wolf packs
S
Ranchers would be
off ered permit to
shoot two wolves
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