12 CapitalPress.com
April 13, 2018
Farmers had no say in the importation of elk
ELK from Page 1
They were let go not far
from the farms and ranches
east of Sedro-Woolley. The
herd grew, as intended, and
farmers started seeing elk in
their fields, more each year.
Elk, once rare, are common
now. They calve in the val-
ley, stay year-round and make
farming and ranching there
more difficult and expensive.
The elk eat hay grown for
livestock, bust fences, dig up
potatoes and stunt trees by
gnawing on the bark. Farmers
worry about their livestock
escaping through the broken
fences or becoming infected
with hoof rot, a disease that
plagues elk.
The farmers say they are
frustrated, both by the bur-
geoning elk population and
the lack of cooperation from
wildlife managers.
Tall order
Farmers had no say in the
importation of elk that began
15 years ago.
“They didn’t ask us. They
just dumped them on our
property,” said John Jonas-
son, a hog and beef producer
whose family has farmed in
the valley since 1870. “We
don’t hate the elk. We hate the
numbers.”
Elk are a widespread prob-
lem in the Pacific Northwest,
where they number nearly
300,000 and cause agricultur-
al damage throughout the re-
gion. Farmers on the Olympic
Peninsula, in the Columbia
Gorge, Eastern Oregon, West-
ern Idaho and elsewhere have
all recently reported increas-
ing damage caused by elk.
Washington has an esti-
mated 50,000 and 60,000 elk
in 10 herds. The North Cas-
cades herd near Sedro-Wool-
ley is the state’s smallest.
The Fish and Wildlife De-
partment, which co-manag-
es the herd with nine Native
American tribes, is working
on a new herd plan. The tribes,
who secured hunting rights by
signing the 1855 Point Elliott
Treaty, oppose submitting the
plan to the Legislature for ap-
proval, but state lawmakers
made a gesture and put into
a spending bill instructions
to Fish and Wildlife to have a
plan by the end of the summer
to minimize the number of elk
on private land and maximize
the number of elk on public
land.
Amy Windrope, Fish and
Wildlife’s acting deputy di-
rector, said it won’t be easy.
She agreed with farmers’
fundamental complaint. “We
need to get way more effec-
tive in getting the elk off the
valley floor,” Windrope said.
Beyond that, managing the
elk gets more difficult, she
said. A large-scale culling of
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Skagit County rancher Randy Good. “We want them to just obey the law and get them off our farms,”
he says.
the herd would
cause an up-
roar from val-
ley residents
who enjoy the
elk, and the
state must re-
John
spect the treaty
Jonasson
rights of the
tribes.
“Finding a way forward is
really tricky,” Windrope said.
“I think it’s not happening fast
enough for ag folks.”
Upper Skagit tribe policy
representative Scott Schuyler
said the tribe doesn’t want to
see farms harmed, but it also
wants a healthy elk herd.
“It’s always going to be
our objective,” he said. “We
realize it could be problematic
for some, but we’re fortunate
that we have the environment
here to allow wildlife to re-
main here.
“We recognize there is
a balancing act we have to
achieve,” he said. “The reality
is not everybody is going to
be 100 percent happy.”
Fish and Wildlife’s plan
to move elk out of the valley
floor will include hunting,
hazing, fences, creating elk
habitat in the hills and issuing
permits to farmers to shoot
damage-causing elk.
Some farmers, though, are
pessimistic. The plan doesn’t
represent anything new, they
say. The department already
does those things.
“We’re not seeing any
measurable improvements,”
Skagit County Farm Bureau
President Bill Schmidt said.
Skagit County Cattleman’s
Association Vice President
Randy Good said he’s losing
hope the state will come up
with something helpful.
“Things aren’t getting any
better,” Good said. “They’re
going to get worse.”
Plight of farmers
The Ovenell family has
ranched near the tiny town of
Concrete, 24
miles east of
Sedro-Wool-
ley, since the
1940s. Over
the years, they
saw an occa-
Cindy
sional
elk.
Ovenell-
Then,
six
Kleinhuizen
years
ago,
about
50
showed up in the fall, said
Cindy Ovenell-Kleinhuizen.
Since then the ranch has
been stuck with feeding elk
in addition to feeding its beef
cattle. The elk overgraze the
pastures, leaving more weeds
and less grass for cows, she
said.
Because of elk, the ranch
spends more to buy hay, fer-
tilizer and install fences.
Elk tear the plastic wrapped
around hay bales and spoil
whatever they don’t eat.
Hazing is time-consum-
ing and futile, and permits to
kill elk are a temporary fix,
Ovenell-Kleinhuizen said.
“They may leave for a few
days, but they come back and
we begin again,” she said.
“It’s not solving any prob-
lems.”
Dairy farmer Randy Mow-
er said that for decades he
grew enough hay to feed his
120 milking cows. Last year,
however, he had to spend
about $18,000 on hay to make
up for what the elk ate.
He won’t ask for a permit
from the state to shoot an elk.
“You’re kind of accepting
that as your payment for all
the damage,” Mower said.
“I’m not going allow them to
think I’ve accepted their pay-
ment.”
Another dairy farmer, Der-
ek Blanken, said about 100
elk moved onto a 40-acre field
and ate all of the hay.
“It’s getting worse. Last
year was the most noticeable,”
he said. “There’s not a whole
lot you can do about it.”
With milk prices low, it’s
hard to afford
to feed his
cows, let alone
the elk, he
said. “I know
I’m not the
only dairyman
Randy
hurting, but
Good
this isn’t help-
ing my cause.”
Asked what should be
done, Blanken suggested “a
culling.”
“Get rid of them,” he said.
“They don’t belong here.”
Expanding herd
By the late 1990s, the herd
was down to about 300 elk,
the state estimated. About
125 lived on agricultural land
along the Skagit River, while
the rest lived at higher eleva-
tions to the north. The Fish
and Wildlife Department said
it was receiving two to four
complaints a year from farm-
ers.
In 2002, the department
drew up a plan to expand the
herd to 1,950 elk. The depart-
ment calculated that was the
minimum number needed to
sustain the population. There
had been 1,700 elk in the
1980s, before the herd began
shrinking because of logging,
forest roads and too much
hunting, according to the de-
partment.
The department and tribes
halted the hunting and im-
ported the elk from Mount St.
Helens.
The plan’s executive sum-
mary stated the department’s
overall view: “While elk
damage and use of agricultur-
al lands is also an issue, it is
recognized that private lands
along the Skagit River are im-
portant areas for elk and that
habitat must be preserved and
protected.”
The plan discussed “herd
augmentation” at length in an
appendix.
The department speculated
that the imported elk would
learn from the older elk and
stay in the hills.
If the elk did come down
to the valley floor and cause
damage, the department
would have a “no-tolerance
policy” and prioritize “lethal
removal of offending ani-
mals.” Other parts of the plan
suggested the state would try
to reduce, but not completely
stop, damage to farms.
In 2013, Fish and Wildlife
signed an agreement with the
tribes to co-manage the elk.
The agreement calls for ex-
hausting non-lethal means of
controlling damage before us-
ing lethal removal.
The department does use
lethal control. It issued 52 per-
mits to shoot damage-causing
elk in the herd between Aug.
1 and March 31. Schuyler, of
the Upper Skagit tribe, said
his tribe supports issuing the
permits.
The state also funds fenc-
ing and compensates farmers
for damage. Neither solves
their problems, farmers say.
Fences shift elk from you
to your neighbor, they say.
Also, elk damage fences. Jo-
nasson said he had a fence
put up 21 months ago and
it’s been breached by elk 20
times.
Compensation is another
sore point. Fish and Wildlife
reports paying out $67,412
since 2002 for damage caused
by elk. No claims, however,
have been paid during the
past three years, even though
Skagit County commissioners
in a recent letter to the depart-
ment complained that elk an-
nually cause several hundred
thousand dollars in damage to
agriculture.
Filing a claim has many
steps. It includes submitting
tax records, property records,
insurance records and an ad-
juster’s report. It means satis-
fying the department that pre-
ventive measures were good
enough and that the public
was allowed to hunt on your
property. Two people filed
claims last year, according to
the department. One didn’t
qualify and one didn’t com-
plete the paperwork.
“People have given up,”
Jonasson said. “It’s not worth
their time.”
Windrope said the depart-
ment doesn’t want the claims
process to be a barrier to com-
pensation. “We’re all for mak-
ing it easy for farmers to get
the help they need,” she said.
Enough elk
The county commission-
ers’ letter to the Fish and
Wildlife Department restat-
ed complaints that elk are
causing economic damage
and threatening public safe-
ty.
The commissioners said
that elk damage crops and
pastures at about 30 farms
a year. They said sheriff’s
vehicles have collided with
elk four times in the past six
years.
“The increasing number
of elk on the valley floor are
a threat to public safety and
have negative economic im-
pacts far beyond the minimal
reimbursements available,”
the commissioners stated.
The
commissioners
pressed the department to
immediately remove elk
from private property by any
means necessary. They cit-
ed a state law that says the
state’s mandate to manage
wildlife must not be con-
strued to infringe on private
property rights.
Good makes the same
point. “We want them to just
obey the law and get them
off our farms,” he said.
Windrope defends her de-
partment’s efforts to do that.
“We’re working pretty
hard to keep elk off their
land,” she said. “We do not
want to grow the herd in the
valley floor of the Skagit.”
Her department’s goal is
to have 1,700 to 2,000 elk in
the North Cascades herd. It
already may be that size. The
department has only a rough
idea because few elk are fit-
ted with radio collars. The
fewer the collars, the larger
the margin of error in count-
ing elk. A recent survey es-
timated 1,593 elk, plus or
minus 716.
The department also esti-
mates 300 to 500 elk outside
the survey area.
Whatever the total herd
count, bands of elk in val-
ley fields are common. “If
you saw just one elk once in
awhile, you’d say, ‘What a
noble creature!’” said Mow-
er, the dairy farmer. “Now
they let your cattle out and
you’re liable.”
The county commission-
ers also complained that elk
interfere with gardens. Rural
landowners aren’t eligible
for compensation, only com-
mercial farmers.
Retired teacher Janis Sch-
weitzer guards her yard with
flags drenched in milk, eggs,
cayenne pepper, cinnamon,
Tabasco sauce and pepper
spray. Schweitzer lost a lot
of garden to elk last year, but
she said she will try again.
“Yeah, I’m going to have
a garden this year. I just
bought a cannister of pepper
spray.”
Jonasson said he followed
the suggestion of a state
wildlife manager and put
tinfoil smeared with peanut
butter on an electric fence.
The elk were supposed to get
a little shock and stay away.
The tinfoil blew in the
wind and short-circuited the
fence.
Employee spotted wolves chasing and attacking rancher’s cattle
WOLVES from Page 1
— authorizing the lethal removal of
two wolves in an attempt to change
the wolf pack’s behavior.
OR-50 is the breeding male of
the pack, a wolf involved in repeat-
ed kills in Wallowa County last
year when he was a member of the
Harl Butte Pack.
According to George Rollins,
Oregon Cattlemen’s Associa-
tion wolf committee co-chaiman,
rancher Chad Delcurto turned out
130 cow and calf pairs into a pri-
vate pasture Wednesday, April 4.
The cattle were held overnight in
a corral so the mothers and calves
could find each other in a safe en-
closure.
On Thursday, the cow/calf pairs
were driven up from the corrals
to higher ground. Rollins said the
cattle were held to make sure they
paired up again. There were no
wolf sightings that afternoon, yet
the next day an employee of Pine
Valley Ranch was scouting for a
hunting trip and saw wolves chas-
ing and attacking Delcurto’s cattle.
“He (ranch employee) ran to
them, video taped them and then
contacted everyone he could to get
in touch with Chad,” Rollins said.
Delcurto assembled a crew on
horseback to check the cattle. The
horseback riders rode into the mid-
dle of wolves among the cattle and
attempted to chase the predators
away.
While checking the herd the
horseback crew found two dead
calves approximately one mile apart
from each other. Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife staff in Bak-
er County as well as Baker County
Sheriff Travis Ash and Deputy Rob
Adams performed an investigation.
“A picture was taken of a cow
standing over her dead calf with
wolves 20 feet away,” Rollins said.
Rollins said another crew was as-
sembled April 7 to gather the entire
herd and determine if there were any
further losses. During the gather-
ing the horseback riders discovered
wolves attacking another calf.
“Riders harassed the wolves (five
wolves were visible at the site) and
drove them over the ridge west of
where the attack took place,” Rollins
said.
The calf had significant bites with
visible open wounds on both rear
legs. Rollins said it was unable to
travel and was left behind with his
mother who was also showing lame-
ness. At the corrals, 130 cows were
counted and 124 calves, including
the pair left on the hillside. Four of
those calves showed visible wounds
on their rear legs and hindquarters.
The calf left on the hillside was later
euthanized and the carcass investigated.
Again, wolves were seen in close prox-
imity during the investigation.
“So at this point Chad had three
calves confirmed killed, four con-
firmed injured and three missing in
48 hours,” Rollins said. “If you total
that up, sold as 550 pound calves,
that’s a $10,000 loss.”
According to Michelle Dennehy
of Oregon Department of Fish and
Wildlife, OR-50 moved into the Pine
Creek Wildlife Unit in Baker County
last fall and joined up with a female
wolf, OR-36.
Rollins said there have been reg-
ular sightings of wolves within 400
yards of the Pine Valley Ranch
shop outside of Halfway where he
recently retired as manager. Fish
and Wildlife biologists have re-
peatedly hazed wolves away from
the ranch headquarters.
“The ODFW guys have done
a remarkable job hazing — they
were concerned there would be
depredations in the spring time,”
Rollins said. “They ran wolves
probably 20 miles with helicopters
back into the forest to the Imnaha
River again and that lasted about
36 hours.”
In the next few days Rollins
said eight more producers are get-
ting set to turn out cattle in the low
hills where Delcurto’s cattle are
grazing.
Lower commodity crop prices have spurred the drive toward consolidation
MERGER from Page 1
integrated products, such as her-
bicide-resistant crops, he said.
Seed companies — which
often incorporate genet-
ic traits into regional seed
products — will now have
to align themselves with
one of the “gang of four”
agrochemical
companies:
Bayer-Monsanto, DowDu-
pont, Syngenta and BASF,
Carstensen said.
If they attempt to reduce
prices or otherwise under-
mine the power of major
trait developers, seed com-
panies risk being punished
in licensing deals, he said.
“The minute they try to
behave competitively, they
get cut off,” Carstensen said.
Competition could get
a boost if seed companies
were allowed to begin de-
veloping generic versions
of genetic traits before they
go off-patent, he said. That
way, the generic trait would
be available as soon the pat-
ent expired, instead of years
later, he said.
Another option would be
to allow seed companies to
“stack” traits in whatever
combination they choose,
instead of the “stacks” man-
dated by the developers,
Carstensen said.
It’s possible the Depart-
ment of Justice could re-
quire such flexibility in the
Bayer-Monsanto deal —
the agreement clearing the
merger isn’t yet public —
but the agency isn’t likely
to delve into such details, he
said.
“I’d love to be wrong,”
Carstensen said.
To a certain extent, the
Department of Justice’s
approval of the merger be-
tween Dow and Dupont last
year set the stage for the
Bayer-Monsanto clearance,
said Bob Young, retired chief
economist for the American
Farm Bureau Federation and
president of the Agricultural
Prospects consultancy firm.
With its approval of the
previous agrochemical com-
bination, the government
likely thought that Bay-
er-Monsanto would serve as
a formidable competitor, he
said.
Developing new genetic
traits and pesticides is ex-
pensive due to regulatory
costs and litigation, so it
makes sense for companies
in these fields to grow in
size, Young said.
“You almost need a com-
pany with deep pockets to
work through all this stuff,”
he said.
Lower commodity crop
prices have also spurred
the drive toward consolida-
tion and cost-cutting, since
there’s “not as much money
rattling around” in the agri-
culture industry, Young said.
“The sector is down.
When that happens, mergers
happen,” he said.