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About Capital press. (Salem, OR) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 10, 2017)
I screamed, pulled my rifl e up and I shot By ERIC MORTENSON Capital Press The Oregon elk hunter who shot a protected gray wolf believes he would have been mauled or killed if he hadn’t fi red when it ran at him. Brian Scott is being roasted on social media and criticized by biologists and activists who ques- tion his story. They’ve keyed in on the bullet’s trajectory, which passed through the wolf’s shoulders, perhaps indicating it was standing broadside to Scott instead of running directly at him. Scott said he can’t explain it and doesn’t know if the wolf perhaps veered sideways as he fi red. Scott said he has replayed the moment in his mind countless times and always concludes he did what he had to do. “I’ve got to live with what I did for the rest of my life,” Scott said in an hour-long phone interview with the Capital Press. “I killed a wolf. It makes me almost nauseous to think about that moment. Turn to WOLF, Page 12 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2017 VOLUME 90, NUMBER 45 WWW.CAPITALPRESS.COM $2.00 A new career in ag After the military, thousands of American veterans have moved to a new life in farming By TIM HEARDEN Capital Press E SPARTO, Calif. — A retired Air Force of- fi cer and reservist, Brian Paddock says his entry into farming about a decade ago was “a little bit of accident and a little bit of economy.” He and his family were living in Vacaville, Calif., where Paddock was a reservist at Tra- vis Air Force Base in addition to his job pilot- ing commercial airliners. They wanted to live in the country, so they bought land in nearby Esparto. The property had about 450 ancient almond trees, so the family harvested the nuts and sold them to a local farmer to make almond butter. Eventually, Paddock re- placed his 100-year-old trees with 1,400 new ones, and his Capay Hills Orchard now mar- kets organic almonds directly to customers through a website and roadside stand. Paddock sees many Courtesy of Farmer Veteran similarities between or- Coalition ganic farming and mili- Brian Paddock, a retired tary service. Air Force offi cer and “The military teach- reservist, used assistance es you procedure, to be from the Farmer Veteran forward-thinking, and Coalition to purchase there’s a level of in- a wood chipper for his tensity in the military,” almond operation in said Paddock, 53, who Esparto, Calif. retired from the service in 2015 but is still a commercial pilot. “You’re always going from one crisis to another, whether it’s self-inflicted or not. That is very much true in farming. “I’m organic ... which is about 90 percent paperwork,” he said. “When I get inspected, I get one big, fat email with a link with all my docu- mentation in it. ... All that documentation, paper- work and accounting — that’s right up the military alley.” Turn to VETERANS, Page 12 Matthew Weaver/Capital Press Jill and Paul Knittel in their barn Oct. 26 near Davenport, Wash. Navy couple raises hogs in E. Washington By MATTHEW WEAVER Capital Press D AVENPORT, Wash. — Usually Jill and Paul Knittel’s hogs are swarming them by now. Jill is calling to about 20 hogs farther out in a pen, a bucket of feed raised. But it’s particularly windy on this fall morning, and the hogs don’t hear her. Jill fi nally walks to the hogs and gets their attention, and they’re fol- lowing close behind her as she walks back to the spot where she and her husband will feed them. The Knittels raise Large Black Hogs, a heritage breed, on their farm near Davenport, Wash. Paul retired from the Navy, serving from 1979 to 1996. Jill served from 1987 to 1992. Paul worked in the en- gine room as a machinist’s mate, while Jill navigated as a quartermaster. They met while stationed at Pearl Harbor, when Jill’s car broke down and Paul was able to fi x it. They mar- ried 40 days after they met, and are going on 28 years together. They have two children, Katarina, 18, and Jon, 16. The couple has always been in- terested in farming, keeping a small horse farm in Chehalis for nine years before Paul’s job took them to Utah for a few years. When they returned to Washington six years ago, they knew they wanted to farm, and came across the land that became the 550-acre Scabland Farm. They now raise 60 hogs, plus horses and goats. They did not use any military pro- grams to start the farm. The taxes on the land had been de- ferred, but the Knittels were required to keep livestock on the property. Turn to COUPLE, Page 12 USDA backs off from regulating GMOs as weeds Proposed rule change withdrawn for second time By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press The USDA has again backed away from regulating genetically en- gineered crops as potential noxious weeds, 17 years after gaining the legal authority to do so. Congress originally granted USDA the power to evaluate and possibly restrict genetically engineered crops based on their risk to become noxious weeds in 2000. Traditionally, biotech crops have been evaluated and regulated by the agency based on their potential to become plant pests, akin to diseases or parasites. The USDA proposed new regu- lations taking advantage of its biotech jurisdiction over noxious weeds under the new law in 2008 but then re- scinded them in 2015. Another set of rules af- fi rming the agency’s au- thority over biotech noxious weeds was proposed in the fi nal days of the Obama administration early this year. The Trump administration has now withdrawn that proposal as well, vow- ing to “take a fresh look, explore policy alternatives, and continue the dialogue with all interested stakeholders.” Critics of the federal government’s oversight of genetic engineering are frustrated by the USDA’s retraction, even though they weren’t entirely hap- py with the Obama administration’s proposed revisions. Turn to GMOS, Page 12