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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 2016
Eagles kill hundreds of lambs each year but it goes unreported
Secret predators
waiting for ewes
to give birth
By JANAE SARGENT
Capital Press
ALBANY — Laura Wahl
stands in the pasture with her
lambs eight hours a day during
peak lambing season to protect
them.
The predators aren’t coyotes
or cougars; they are bald eagles.
Wahl runs Wahl Grazing, a
sheep and goat operation, with
her family near Albany . She esti-
mates that she loses 300 lambs
a year to eagle depredation — a
loss of approximately $37,500.
During lambing season,
Wahl is used to seeing 20 eagles
lining the perimeter of her pas-
tures waiting for ewes to give
birth to their lambs.
Because of a complex report-
ing system, few resources avail-
able to ranchers and the stigma
surrounding complaints about
the national bird, Wahl said
her family doesn’t have many
options to 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 con-
troversial and complicated issue
for ranchers, ranching advocates
and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, which oversees pro-
tected 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 particularly tough problem
because there are limited tools
and resources to help sheep
producers.
In addition to not reporting
the depredation, many ranch-
ers don’t even want to talk about
the issue out of fear of reprisal.
Three ranchers in the Willamette
Valley acknowledged having
serious problems with eagles but
did not want to talk on the record
or give their names.
Because ranchers don’t
report the depredation, repre-
sentatives of the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, the Farm Ser-
vice Agency and USDA Wildlife
Services say they are unaware
that eagles killing lambs are a
widespread problem.
Lack of reporting
Emily Ruckert, a sheep
rancher in Tangent , said most
producers don’t know how to
report eagle depredation or that
services or resources exist and
don’t have time to go through
the reporting process so they
choose to handle it themselves.
“I’ve been dealing with
eagles my whole life,” Ruck-
ert said. “I’ve never even heard
of reporting to Fish and Wild-
life. There’s really nothing we
can do.”
Statistics are equally hard to
fi nd. A U.S. Department of Agri-
culture survey found that eagles
killed 6,300 sheep and lambs in
2004, the last year those statis-
tics were reported separately.
The department stopped report-
ing specifi cally on eagle dep-
redation after that but in 2009
reported that predators killed
247,200 sheep and lambs.
Dave Williams, Oregon state
director of USDA Wildlife Ser-
vices, said ranchers reported
only three cases of eagle dep-
redation on lambs to his agency
between 2011 and 2015.
Representatives at the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service said
the agency has received no
reports of eagle depredation in
recent years.
According to the agency,
“depredation” is damage to
property or a threat to human
health and safety caused by
eagles.
Eagles are protected by the
Bald and Golden Eagle Act and
the Migratory Bird Act, which
means ranchers are not allowed
to scare, harass or take eagles
predating on their livestock
without obtaining a permit from
the Fish and Wildlife Service .
In addition to being the
national bird, bald eagles were
protected under the Endangered
Species Act until 2007.
Williams
said
eagles
are doing well now and are
not endangered but are still
protected.
Rodger Ruckert, who is
Emily Ruckert’s father and
partner in her sheep operation,
said he has seen the number of
eagles killing lambs drastically
increase as their population has
grown.
“When I was a kid, if you
saw one eagle it was quite a
sight. Now there’s easily 15 to
20 eagles around the pastures on
any given day,” Ruckert said.
Ruckert said most eagles
don’t migrate anymore and that
he has several native immature
eagles that eat his lamb crop all
summer long.
Ruckert said he has lost 10
percent of his fl ock of 300 lambs
to eagle depredation, which is a
Sheep, lamb loss by cause, 2009
Cause
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
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
Source: USDA NASS
devastating loss to him and his
family.
“These producers basically
have to watch their livestock
getting eaten and they have to
pay the bill,” said Carter Wil-
ford, a licensed falconer and
ranching advocate from Utah.
Wahl explained that she has
seen eagles grab small lambs
and drop them from heights to
kill them and has seen eagles
pecking at the heads of larger
lambs until they die.
Emily Ruckert said she came
out to her pasture one day and
saw two eagles on a month-
old lamb pecking its brains out
while it was still alive.
The Fish and Wildlife Ser-
vice offers permits and resources
for ranchers experiencing eagle
depredation but Jason Holm,
the assistant regional director of
external affairs, said the agency
has not received any applica-
tions for an eagle depredation
permit for agricultural loss in
recent memory.
Because eagles are protected
by federal laws, ranchers need
permits to disturb bald or golden
eagles that attack their livestock.
Hazing permits
Federal law prohibits
wounding or killing eagles so
the permits allow only hazing
eagles, which means using non-
lethal means to scare them away
from livestock.
Wilford said accessing
resources is bureaucratic and
complicated and ranchers are
frustrated by the federal gov-
ernment when it comes to eagle
depredation.
To apply for a permit to haze
eagles, ranchers need to have
someone from USDA Wildlife
Services inspect the lamb car-
cass and declare that the ani-
mal was killed because of dep-
redation. After a depredation
is declared, Wilford said it is
still up to the discretion of the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
whether to grant a rancher a per-
mit to haze the eagles.
Williams said investigators
examine the carcasses to look
for talon marks and determine
if the animal was killed by an
eagle or died of other causes and
was fed on by an eagle after its
death.
Wilford said having a USDA
Wildlife Services investigation
done can take up to two weeks,
which causes further problems
for ranchers.
Between the time a report is
made and when an investigator
arrives to examine the carcass, it
is vulnerable to being eaten by
other predators and draws other
eagles and predators to the pas-
ture looking for more lambs to
kill.
Holm said the Fish and
Wildlife Service takes approx-
imately 30 to 90 days to pro-
cess completed permit applica-
tions once the investigation is
done and the depredation order
is declared.
Williams, of USDA Wild-
life Services, agreed it can be a
problem for ranchers and sug-
gested tarping carcasses to pro-
tect them from other animals.
They also recommended
taking photos of the carcass and
keeping as much evidence as
possible for the application.
Wahl said asking her to pho-
tograph a carcass or protect it
is unrealistic because she runs
6,000 sheep on 15 pastures and
3,000 acres and can’t keep track
of each incident.
An eagle depredation per-
mit application requires a $100
fee in addition to documentation
and a depredation order from the
USDA Wildlife Services.
Wilford said he thinks ranch-
ers don’t submit reports or eagle
permit applications because the
process is so diffi cult.
“Most ranchers either have
given up on the issue, don’t have
hope or don’t know any help
exists,” Wilford said.
Permit experience
Larry Ruckert, Emily Ruck-
ert’s uncle and owner of a sep-
arate small sheep operation,
obtained an eagle depredation
permit 15 years ago after see-
ing a large golden eagle kill a
20-pound lamb.
Ruckert said he had to call
fi ve different people to fi gure
out how to apply for a permit. It
allowed him to use fi recracker
shells to scare eagles away.
He said it gave him tempo-
rary relief but when he applied
for a permit the next year, he
never got a response and gave up.
Federal law and Fish and
Wildlife Service regulations
once allowed licensed falconers
to trap immature golden eagles
attacking livestock but the
agency stopped the practice in
2009, said Sterling Brown, vice
president of public policy for the
Utah Farm Bureau Federation.
“The (USFWS) does not
believe livestock losses are sig-
nifi cant and has ceased falconers’
access to eagles,” Brown said.
Holm said it is up to state
governors to issue depredation
orders and allow falconers to
come into an area to trap pred-
atory golden eagles and keep
them for the sport of falconry. In
his time at the Fish and Wildlife
Service, Holm said he has only
seen depredation orders used in
Wyoming.
Holm said ranchers should
fi rst contact USDA Wildlife Ser-
vices to assess if livestock dam-
age was caused by eagles.
Compensation available
There is also a compensa-
tion program that was built into
the 2014 Farm Bill that autho-
rizes payments of up to 75 per-
cent of the market value of live-
stock lost to federally protected
animals for up to $125,000, but
few ranchers aware of it.
Taylor Murray, outreach spe-
cialist for the Oregon Farm Ser-
vice Agency, said his offi ce has
never had an application for
compensation for eagle depre-
dation on lambs. He said that the
Farm Service Livestock Disas-
ter specialist has never heard of
eagle depredation in Oregon.
Ranchers must apply at their
local Farm Service Agency offi ce
and submit a “Notice of Loss”
form within 30 days of the loss.
Wahl said she had never heard of
a compensation program but will
apply now that she knows.
Wilford stressed that he
believes in protecting eagles
but that there is now enough
eagle protection to warrant giv-
ing falconers access to predatory
golden eagles and fi nding other
resources for ranchers.
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Falconers cannot trap bald
eagles.
He said the system for
obtaining permits and compen-
sation needs to be simplifi ed
and that the Fish and Wildlife
Service needs to look at how to
prevent depredation rather than
dealing with it after it happens.
Preventive measures
Ranchers have found some
preventive measures to be
helpful.
Wahl said the biggest help
for her operation is to lamb in a
barn while the lambs are small-
est and most vulnerable.
When a lamb is born in a pas-
ture at Wahl Grazing, employ-
ees immediately transport it into
a large barn, where it is pro-
tected from eagles.
But because of space con-
strictions, Wahl said she has to
turn out the lambs after fi ve days.
Wahl also has guard dogs but
said they don’t do much to pro-
tect lambs from eagles.
Emily Ruckert said she has
protection llamas to deal with
other predators but that she
hasn’t found them to be help-
ful against eagles. She also does
lambing indoors when possible
and stays with the lambs when-
ever they are outside.
Williams said the biggest
thing that draws eagles to a pas-
ture is carcasses. He said an
eagle will fi rst be drawn to a pas-
ture to feed off a dead lamb and
may then associate the pasture
with easy food.
He suggested being vigilant
in cleaning up and disposing of
carcasses before eagles have a
chance to associate lambs with
food.
Wilford stressed the impor-
tance of ranchers reporting eagle
depredation — even if they don’t
receive a permit or compensation.
“It would be so helpful if
people reported more,” said
Wilford. “It would help to vali-
date that there is a problem. The
service is saying they don’t get
reports of depredation so they
can’t do anything.”
Brown agreed that ranch-
ers aren’t reporting in any of the
Western states but that the Utah
Farm Bureau and its Western
counterparts want to do more
and assist ranchers.
“We want to protect eagles,
migratory birds and preda-
tors but there also needs to be
a program in place that is effi -
cient enough to allow live-
stock producers to receive help
when livestock is being depre-
dated on,” Brown said. “Ranch-
ers aren’t looking for handouts,
just fair compensation for their
losses.”
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