June 23, 2017
CapitalPress.com
5
Trust between state, ranchers elusive
as wolves move into N. California
Sean Ellis/Capital Press File
Hops are processed at a facility
in southwestern Idaho last Sep-
tember. As the region’s economy
booms, many farming operations
are having a harder time finding
and keeping workers.
SW Idaho
farmers
struggle with
tight labor
market
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
NAMPA, Idaho — As the
economy in southwestern
Idaho continues to heat up,
farming operations are having
a harder time finding labor-
ers, and they also have to pay
more to keep them.
“The market for skilled ag
labor is very, very tight,” said
Don Tolmie, production man-
ager for Treasure Valley Seed
Co. in Homedale. “It’s hard to
find enough people to fill all
the rosters right now.”
According to the Idaho De-
partment of Labor, the unem-
ployment rate in southwestern
Idaho was a combined 3.1
percent in May. In Ada Coun-
ty, the state’s most populous,
it was 2.7 percent.
That means farming and
ranching operations have a
harder time finding workers
who can often make more
money in other sectors.
Meridian farmer Richard
Durrant has had to bump up
his pay rates over the past
two years to attract and keep
workers. Despite that, his
operation has still lost some
employees who have left for
better pay.
“Every day I’m talking
to producers who can’t find
enough employees,” he said.
“Every grower I talk to says
the labor force is definitely
tight and it’s hard to find peo-
ple willing to work.”
Winery and vineyard own-
er Ron Bitner of Caldwell also
had to increase his pay rates
last year to keep employees
from leaving. He hasn’t had
to do that again this year but
only because a harsh winter
severely damaged his wine
grape crop and he hasn’t had
to do much trimming.
But he has had to increase
the total hours of his current
employees to get by this year.
Others have had to in-
crease hours as well as pay.
“Wages are up and hours
are longer,” Tolmie said.
Farmers told Capital Press
that a thriving construction
industry in the region is their
main competition.
According to the Depart-
ment of Labor, the average
annual wage for 6,914 people
employed in the agricultur-
al industry in southwestern
Idaho in 2016 was $31,248.
That’s compared to $43,928
for the 20,104 people em-
ployed in the construction in-
dustry last year.
The labor crunch has been
particularly difficult for the
region’s labor-intensive fruit
industry. Two of the three
largest fruit orchards in the
state turned to the H-2A guest-
worker visa program for the
first time last year to ensure
they had enough workers.
The other, Williamson
Orchards and Vineyards, se-
riously considered using the
H-2A program this year but
opted not to mainly because
its wine grape crop was se-
verely impacted by the unusu-
ally cold winter.
There are a lot of over-
head expenses involved in the
guestworker program, said
owner Michael Williamson.
With the expected reduc-
tion in the operation’s wine
grape crop, “I had a hard time
penciling it out,” Williamson
said of the H-2A program.
Williamson said he had to
bump up his regular work-
ers’ pay to get them to stick
around and the H-2A program
is still on the table for future
years.
“You have to be able to
harvest your crop,” he said.
“At some point, that may
override everything.”
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
HAT CREEK, Calif. —
More than five years after a
gray wolf first set foot in Cal-
ifornia, trust between state
wildlife managers and ranchers
remains elusive.
That much was certain at
a workshop on wolf-livestock
conflicts June 14, as state De-
partment of Fish and Wildlife
officials were grilled by cattle
producers who perceive the
agency as slow to notify land-
owners of nearby wolf sight-
ings.
“We are right now con-
cerned about, one, minimizing
livestock losses and two, pro-
tecting wolves,” DFW wildlife
program manager Karen Ko-
vacs told about 60 area ranch-
ers in the fire hall at Hat Creek,
about 70 miles northeast of
Redding.
If the state issues informa-
tion about pups, for instance,
some wolf enthusiasts and vid-
eographers might flock to the
area to get pictures, while oth-
ers might want to harm them,
Kovacs said.
“They’re in the middle,”
she said of wildlife managers.
“We try to contact people when
Photos by Tim Hearden/Capital Press
From left, Kent Landon of the California Department of Fish and
Wildlife talks as Elizabeth Willey of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, Pete Figura of the state DFW, Paul Kjos of Shasta County
and Jim Shuler of USDA Wildlife Services listen. They participated
in a panel discussion on wolves June 14 in Hat Creek, Calif.
we’ve got multiple tracks.”
When Kovacs later urged
the ranchers to “trust us,” sev-
eral blurted out, “Well, you
don’t trust us.”
“You can’t believe a word
the California Department of
Fish and (Wildlife) says,” Las-
sen County rancher Joe Egen
said in an interview. “They are
intentionally vague with all of
this. There’s a pair right now on
one of our allotments. We’ve
seen the tracks.
“We didn’t decide until
three days ago whether we
were going to turn out or not,”
he said, adding that he will run
his cattle on his summer allot-
ment but with a large human
presence.
The exchanges highlight
what has been a rocky relation-
ship between state regulators
and rural Northern Californians
since the December 2011 arriv-
Pamela Flick, the California
representative of Defenders
of Wildlife, talks about efforts
to reach common ground on a
stakeholders’ committee that
helped put together the state’s
wolf management plan.
al of OR-7, the first known gray
wolf in the state in 87 years.
Since then, the state Fish
and Game Commission has
listed wolves as endangered,
meaning the animal can’t be
killed or hunted even in cases
of livestock depredation. The
state in December finalized its
wolf management plan to guide
conservation and management
efforts as a wolf population
takes hold.
The California Cattlemen’s
Association and California
Farm Bureau Federation filed
suit against the state earlier this
year to challenge the listing.
Meanwhile, OR-7 has returned
to Oregon, but another pack —
the Shasta Pack — has become
established in Northern Cali-
fornia.
Wolf advocates and state
officials have been promoting
nonlethal means of warding off
wolves, including using guard
dogs, motion-sensor lights,
brightly colored flags or range
riders. But cattle and sheep
producers say state officials are
frequently vague about where
they believe wolves to be.
Rancher and Shasta County
Supervisor Mary Rickert said
state officials should collar
wolves so that landowners can
know when their animals may
be in danger from nearby pred-
ators.
“As long as the government
can be diligent about notifying
us, then it will work,” she said
in an interview.
The use of collars were one
idea that enjoyed nearly unani-
mous agreement in a stakehold-
ers’ group that helped put the
state’s wolf management plan
together, said Pamela Flick, the
California representative for
Defenders of Wildlife.
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