FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 2016
VOLUME 89,
NUMBER 33
THE
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PREDATORS
Eagles kill hundreds of lambs each year but federal
bureaucracy keeps ranchers from getting help
By JANAE SARGENT
Capital Press
A
LBANY, Ore. — Laura Wahl stands in
the fi eld with her lambs eight hours a day
during peak lambing season to protect
them.
The predators aren’t coyotes or cou-
gars; they are bald eagles.
Wahl runs Wahl Grazing, a sheep and goat opera-
tion, with her family near Albany, Ore. She estimates
that she loses 300 lambs a year to eagle depredation
— a loss of approximately
“There’s
$37,500.
During lambing season,
Wahl is used to seeing 20 ea- nothing we can
gles lining the perimeter of really do about
her pastures waiting for ewes
(eagles). All we
to give birth to their lambs.
Because of a complex can do is hope
reporting system, few re-
sources available to ranchers the eagles don’t
and the stigma surrounding
complaints about the nation- fi nd the lambs.”
al bird, Wahl said her family
Laura Wahl
doesn’t have many options to
of Wahl Grazing
protect their lambs.
“There’s nothing we can
really do about (eagles),” Wahl said. “All we can do is
hope the eagles don’t fi nd the lambs.”
Eagle depredation is a controversial and complicat-
ed issue for ranchers, ranching advocates and the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees protected
species. Ranchers agree that eagles killing lambs is a
big problem but they do not report the depredation out
of a lack of faith in federal government services.
Peter Orwick, executive director of the American
Sheep Industry Association, said avian raptors are a
huge problem for producers and that eagles are a par-
ticularly tough problem because there are limited tools
and resources to help sheep producers.
In addition to not reporting the depredation, many
ranchers don’t even want to talk about the issue out of
fear of reprisal.
Turn to EAGLES, Page 12
Janae Sargent/Capital Press
Laura Wahl, owner of Wahl Grazing, explains how eagles target the lambs in her pastures. When the fi elds face a perimeter of trees,
she said eagles will perch in them.
Sheep, lamb loss by cause, 2009
Cause
Janae Sargent/Capital Press
Young feeder lambs stick
near their mothers at Wahl
Grazing.
Number of head
Known predator
225,300 or 36%
Weather related
83.3
Physiological problems*
58.6
Unknown non-predator
54.1
(Thousand head)
Lambing problems
52.9
Old age
39.3
Of the 634,500 head
Parasites
30.4
of sheep and lambs
Non-predator
22.2
lost in 2009, more than
Unknown predator
21.9
one-third was due to
Other disease
13.8
known predators,
including eagles.
Poisoning 10.1
On their back 3.3
*Includes respiratory, metabolic
and other digestive problems.
Theft 1.9
Source: USDA NASS
Courtesy of Kathy Nowak, Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
An American Bald Eagle is
seen near La Grande, Ore.
Crop, pasture land prices increase in Northwest, California
Investors still find value in tight ag real estate market
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
Agricultural land values have
appreciated this year throughout
the Northwest and California,
bucking the national trend, accord-
ing to a recent report by USDA’s
National Agricultural Statistics
Service.
Industry sources say the Aug. 5
report confi rms an extremely tight
regional supply of available farm
land, even as low commodity prices
are bringing down land values else-
where.
The average value of U.S. crop
land is $4,090, down $40 from the
prior year, according to the report.
Idaho’s average crop land value
rose $100, or 3.1 percent, to $3,300.
The average crop land price rose 2.1
percent in California, to $10,910 per
acre, 5 percent in Oregon, to $2,730
per acre, and 4.9 percent in Wash-
ington, to $2,760 per acre.
The trend was also consistent
with pasture values, which held fl at
nationally, averaging $1,330 per
acre. Pasture values are up 4 percent
in Idaho, at $1,300 per acre, fl at in
California at $2,700 per acre, up 3
percent in Oregon, at $680 per acre,
and up 2.4 percent in Washington, at
$840 per acre.
University of Idaho Extension
Capital Press fi le
economist Ben Eborn said the report
shows the fi rst dip in national land Grass seed is harvested in a Willamette Valley
fi eld. Agriculture land in the Pacifi c Northwest has
Turn to PRICES, Page 12 risen in value this year, bucking the national trend.
EPA urged What’s Upstream to be careful
Agency reviewed website
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
The Environmental Protection
Agency went over the What’s Up-
stream website line-by-line last year,
trying with mixed success to tone down
the site’s attacks on agriculture, accord-
ing to newly released EPA records.
What’s Upstream planners, led by
the Swinomish Indian tribe in north
Puget Sound, made some edits and
thanked the EPA for its guidance.
But other suggestions were not
adopted, and the tribe’s environmen-
tal policy director, Larry Wasserman,
resisted EPA’s proposal to have the
Washington Department of Ecology
fact-check the website, according to
an email from the EPA’s Puget Sound
intergovernmental coordinator, Lisa
Chang, to the Northwest Indian Fish-
eries Commission.
Instead, the website was reviewed
by EPA staff members, who were par-
ticularly concerned by unsupported
claims about the extent of agricul-
ture’s contribution to water pollution
and how surveys that purportedly
showed strong public support for new
regulations were presented.
“Since Larry was not open to having
the appropriate ECY technical experts
review this, I’m also including com-
ments from our 303(d)/305(b) staff,”
wrote Chang, referring to sections of the
Clean Water Act. “We want to empha-
size the importance of ensuring a solid
technical basis for assertions made in
this website, including those relating to
Turn to UPSTREAM, Page 12