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CapitalPress.com
August 7, 2015
‘Stuck’ with wolves, rancher says he’ll make the best of it
WDFW touts
range-riders as
cattle protectors
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
CLE ELUM, Wash. — An
Ellensburg rancher who lost
a cow to wolves in Central
Washington says he still be-
lieves his cattle can co-exist
with the returning predators.
“I’m not excited about it,
but it doesn’t matter whether
I’m excited,” rancher Sam
Kayser said Tuesday. “We’re
stuck with them. I want to
think there’s room for all of
us.”
Kayser lost a yearling
Angus in mid-July to the
Teanaway pack in Kittitas
County, the state’s west-
ern-most pack and one of its
best tracked. Three wolves in
the pack, which may have as
many as six members, have
been fitted with collars trans-
mitting their locations.
Kayser’s range-rider, Bill
Johnson, gets updates three
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Range-rider Bill Johnson, left, and Ellensburg rancher Sam Kayser
field questions Aug. 4 at the Teanaway Community Forest in
Central Washington about their efforts to protect cows in a wolf
pack’s territory. A cow in Kayser’s herd was killed this summer by
wolves. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife arranged
for Johnson and Kayser to talk to the media.
times a day. He said the at-
tack showed the difficulty of
protecting 400 cows grazing
over 40,000 acres from pred-
ators that he called “incredi-
bly smart.”
“I don’t think it could
have been prevented, no
way,” he said.
Kayser and Johnson met
with the media at the Te-
anaway Community Forest,
near where the depredation
took place on state grazing
land. The Washington De-
partment of Fish and Wildlife
arranged the meeting with
Kayser and Johnson as part
of a presentation on how the
agency is managing wolves.
The forest is about 100
miles east of Seattle and is
the western edge of the gray
wolf’s dispersal since being
reintroduced to Idaho and
Wyoming in 1995.
Because the Teanaway
pack roams in the western
two-thirds of Washington,
it’s protected by the federal
Endangered Species Act. If
Teanaway pack wolves con-
tinue to prey on livestock,
shooting them isn’t an op-
tion, according to the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service.
Four cows were killed in
early July by the Dirty Shirt
pack in northeast Washing-
ton, where wolves have only
state protection. The WDFW
has indicated that if the pack
kills one more cow, the agen-
cy will offer the rancher a
permit to shoot up to two
wolves.
WDFW hopes it won’t
come to that. Range-riders
are WDFW’s No. 1 preven-
tive measure, but they have
not been universally em-
braced by ranchers.
In an interview Wednes-
day, Stevens County rancher
Scott Nielsen agreed human
presence can keep away
wolves, but the wolves may
merely move toward some-
body else’s livestock.
“Show me the evidence
a range-rider has prevented
one single attack,” he said.
“It plays well in the press, but
I’m just highly skeptical.”
Johnson has been riding
for Kayser for 18 years. For
the past three years, his wag-
es have been partially funded
by the environmental group
Conservation Northwest.
He described himself
as “pro wolf” and said he
hopes ranchers will adapt to
wolves. He acknowledged
managing wolves won’t be
easy. They don’t seem to be
afraid of him, and they know
where the livestock are,
he said. “It doesn’t matter
where we run the cattle, the
wolves have a way of know-
ing.”
The Teanaway pack was
documented in 2011 and one
depredation is “not the end
of the world,” said Kayser,
who has been compensated
by the state for his cow.
“One is a lot different
than five or six,” said Kay-
ser, noting the next depreda-
tion may occur in 10 years
or next week. “We’ll cross
that bridge when we come
to it,” he said. “So far, we’ve
been successful. But we
have enough habitat for the
wolves we have.”
Kayser said he sym-
pathizes with northeast
Washington ranchers, who
graze livestock on ranges
with more wolves. “I think
there’s a real problem up
in the northeast corner of
the state,” he said. “The
northeast part of the state
is carrying too much of the
impact.”
WDFW has contracted
with five range-riders and
Conservation Northwest has
shared costs with ranchers to
employ seven more.
Budget constraints and
the difficulty of recruiting
people for the seasonal work
have limited the number of
range-riders, WDFW wolf
policy coordinator Donny
Martorello said. “I think we
have a need for more.”
Hop output to increase
despite ongoing drought
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
Washington State Potato Commission executive director Chris Voigt goes through the rules for a po-
tato peeling competition Jan. 27 at the Washington Oregon Potato Conference in Pasco, Wash. Voigt
marks his 10th anniversary with the commission in August.
Washington potato leader
looks ahead to next decade
short of 2014 in yields, but
it could be far worse without
significant rain in the next
few weeks, MacKinnon said.
Some German growers at the
congress said yields could be
down 25 percent or even rival
2003 when the German crop
was short 50 percent, he said.
Most of the European crop
is not irrigated. Most of the
Yakima Valley crop is. Yakima
growers largely switched to
drip irrigation in recent years
to save water.
The U.S. is second to Ger-
many in world production and
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By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
The biggest challenge of
the next 10 years will be ed-
ucating the public about the
science behind farming, the
head of the Washington State
Potato Commission says.
“There’s this constant
bombardment of people at-
tacking agriculture, not un-
derstanding why farmers
do certain things or trying
to dictate farm policy,” said
Chris Voigt, who this month
marks 10 years as executive
director of the commission.
Farmers are “really con-
fronted with a lot of potential
restrictions that will make it
very difficult to farm, wheth-
er it’s labor, pesticide, (ge-
netically modified crops),
water — there’s this sort of
unfortunate basket of doom.”
Part of the solution lies in
educating legislators, regula-
tors and the public about ag-
riculture, Voigt said.
“The great thing is the sci-
ence is on our side,” he said.
“It’s hard for an activist to
say, ‘Climate change is hap-
pening, look at the science,
you’ve got to believe it,’ and
then come out against GMOs.
“We say, ‘Wait a minute,
(the science) says GMOs are
incredibly safe.’”
Farmers support the tech-
nology, but Washington
won’t grow GMO potatoes
until its export customers ac-
cept them, Voigt said.
Voigt said he hopes to re-
main with the Moses Lake,
Wash.-based commission for
another decade.
Industry members say
Voigt has had a positive im-
pact.
Warden, Wash., farmer
Frank Martinez recently left
the commission after serving
on the board for 12 years.
“(Voigt) knows the pota-
to industry,” Martinez said.
“He represents us well across
the country, in Washington,
D.C. He’s just been good all
around.”
“He’s brought a lot of
stability and integrity,” said
Dale Lathim, executive di-
rector of Potato Growers of
Washington. “He’s been a
very calming factor. He’s
gone above and beyond to
make the Washington potato
industry known locally and
nationally.”
Asked what his biggest ac-
complishment has been, Voigt
said many people would point
to his 60-day, all-potato diet
in 2010. It demonstrated the
healthfulness of potatoes.
But he disagrees.
“All I did was just eat pota-
toes,” he said.
Voigt prefers to focus on
the commission’s efforts to
develop the “Washington
Grown” television program
to promote agriculture, and
solidifying the relationships
with Oregon and Idaho potato
farmers.
“Ten years ago, Oregon
and Idaho were considered
our competition,” he said.
“Being able to go from that
adversarial relationship to 100
percent cooperation, we’ve
come a long way.”
More water held at Osoyoos Lake
OROVILLE, Wash. — The
state Department of Ecology
is holding back more water in
Osoyoos Lake to help Okanogan
County irrigators in the fall.
Ecology received approval for
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brewers have been concerned
drought will reduce the Yaki-
ma crop.
Some aroma varieties in the
Yakima Valley may drop 10 to
15 percent below average in
yields, Hop Growers of Amer-
ica said.
Heat has “severely affect-
ed” several varieties but actu-
ally improved the outlook of
the Cascade variety, MacKin-
non said. Some growers in the
Wapato Irrigation Project have
been “seriously affected” by
lack of water, but most grow-
ers have not been affected by
the drought, he said.
The bigger concern is an-
other dry winter doing great-
er harm to the 2016 crop, he
said.
In June, the National Agri-
cultural Statistics Service said
U.S. hop acreage increased
16 percent. Washington is at
32,205 acres, up 3,347 from
last year. Oregon is 6,807 up
1,397 from last year and Ida-
ho is 4,975 up 1,232. The in-
crease is driven by craft brew-
eries projecting 20 percent
annual growth through 2020.
Hop harvest in the Yakima
Valley typically starts in late
August and runs through Sep-
tember.
Voigt hits
10-year mark
with commission
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“This will allow us to store
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Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Hop cones are shown in summer growth in Yakima, Wash. The Ya-
kima area is the nation’s leading region in hop production. Acreage
is expected to keep increasing this year.
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MOXEE, Wash. — U.S.
hop production will be up 5
percent this year despite heat
and drought in the Yakima Val-
ley where 70 to 80 percent of
the nation’s hops are grown.
The increase is due to more
acres in production, but the
crop still “will be very short
relative to demand” from the
craft brewing industry, said
Doug MacKinnon, president
of 47 Hops, a Yakima hop
dealer.
The U.S. crop was estimat-
ed at 74.5 million pounds at
the International Hop Grow-
ers’ Congress in Germany the
week of July 27, according to
Hop Growers of America and
the Washington Hop Commis-
sion, both in Moxee. That’s up
3.5 million pounds from 2014
but short of the record of 94.7
million pounds in 2009.
German and other Euro-
pean crops are down 10 to
20 percent. The world crop
is estimated at 198.2 million
pounds, down from 211 mil-
lion in 2014.
MacKinnon, who attend-
ed the congress, said German
production, which is approx-
imately 40 percent of world
production, is a mixed bag.
“Above average tempera-
tures and lack of rain have tak-
en what was a beautiful crop
with enormous potential just
six short weeks ago and turned
it into a crop that has the po-
tential to be the worst in recent
memory,” he said.
Drought and winds are
damaging the German crop,
estimated to be 16 percent
can be released at the end of
summer if needed to keep the
river hydrated for a longer peri-
od into the fall,” said Al Josephy,
Ecology’s operations manager
at Zosel Dam on the lake.
The Oroville-Tonasket Irri-
gation District will benefit, as
will all other irrigators on the
Okanogan River to its mouth,
said Jay O’Brien, district man-
ager.
The Oroville-Tonasket Dis-
trict serves 1,800 customers on
10,000 acres from the border
to just below Tonasket. The re-
gion’s farmers grow mostly tree
fruit and some hay.
The district has been oper-
ating normally without water
restrictions, O’Brien said.
“We’re constantly watching
river flows. It’s a wait-and-see
game as to what the weather
does, but at this point we haven’t
needed to ration,” he said.
— Dan Wheat