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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2018
Confi rmed wolf attacks double in Washington state
State is better at
documentation
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
The number of confi rmed
wolf attacks on cattle in
Washington state in 2018
was more than double any
previous year, according to
state Department of Fish and
Wildlife reports.
At least 31 cows or calves
were killed or injured, top-
ping the previous high of
15 in 2016. The count does
not include missing cattle
or suspected depredations
in which scavengers picked
the bones and ate evidence
of wolf bites.
Cattle Producers of
Washington President Scott
Nielsen said the number of
attacks is increasing, but
attributed the large jump in
confi rmed depredations to
better documentation .
“I don’t think there was
a big increase. I think it has
been a slow, steady growth,”
he said. “It’s not way worse
now. They’re just admitting
it.”
The Department of
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
Wolf attacks on livestock are up this year.
Fish and Wildlife has not
announced a fi nal count for
the year, and the depart-
ment’s periodic reports on
wolf activities often lag
weeks behind events.
As in the past, most dep-
redations took place in Ferry
and Stevens counties during
the summer and fall graz-
ing season. The Old Profan-
ity Territory pack in Ferry
County was blamed for 16
attacks.
Cattle, however, were
attacked in more parts of the
state and over more months
than usual. Attacks started in
May and continued into late
fall.
In southeast Washing-
ton, the Grouse Flats pack
has attacked at least three
cattle since late August. In
north-central Washington,
one wolf took down a 400-
pound calf in Okanogan
County, where wolves are
still federally protected.
The calf was killed in
the Department of Fish
and Wildlife’s Sinlahekin
Wildlife Area, where cat-
tle gather in the fall before
moving from public sum-
mer grazing grounds to pri-
vate pastures for the winter.
No cattle had been attacked
by wolves there before,
according to the depart-
ment. Unlike in the east-
ern one-third of Washing-
ton, the department can’t
lethally remove wolves to
stop attacks on livestock.
“We need to get out from
that (federal) listing,” Okan-
ogan County rancher Vic
Stokes said. “There’s no
doubt we’re going to have
wolves. We ranchers have
to understand that there are
a lot of wolves in northeast
Washington, and they are
going to disperse.
“We’re trying to prepare
for them the best we can,”
he said.
The Department of Fish
and Wildlife has docu-
mented wolf attacks on live-
stock every year since 2012.
The high-water mark for
depredations remains 2014,
when a wolfpack ravaged
a fl ock of sheep in Stevens
County. The department
confi rmed that wolves killed
at least 28 sheep and injured
six others.
The department shot four
wolves in three packs to stop
attacks on livestock in 2018.
Nielsen credited new
Fish and Wildlife Direc-
tor Kelly Susewind with
wanting to get a more accu-
rate accounting of livestock
losses. He said the number
of confi rmed depredations
should motivate the depart-
ment to collar more wolves
to better follow packs.
Efforts to obtain com-
ment from the Department
of Fish and Wildlife were
unsuccessful.
Nielsen also said a wild-
life deputy hired by Ste-
vens and Ferry counties
has helped to fi nd downed
calves and cows before the
scavengers do. The coun-
ty’s role has given depart-
ment investigations more
credence among ranchers,
he said. “There’s been some
oversight,” he said.
In southeast Washing-
ton, the Grouse Flats wolf-
pack straddles the Wash-
ington-Oregon border. The
pack attacked cattle owned
by three different ranchers
between Aug. 23 and Oct.
28, according to the Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife.
One attack took place in
a fenced private pasture and
one on a U.S. Forest Service
grazing allotment. In the
other attack, wolves chased
a 600-pound calf off a For-
est Service allotment and
killed it in an adjacent pri-
vate pasture.
Washington court: Fish and Wildlife can regulate land to protect fi sh
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Washington’s
Depart-
ment of Fish and Wild-
life can regulate construc-
tion on dry land if the
agency decides fi sh may be
affected, the state Supreme
Court ruled unanimously in
December .
The court rejected a law-
suit by fi ve counties that
alleged the department was
overstepping its authority by
requiring local governments
to get permits from the
agency to build and main-
tain bridges that span but do
not touch water.
More broadly, the deci-
sion affi rms the Department
of Fish and Wildlife’s juris-
diction over a host of activ-
ities on public and private
land, such as clearing brush,
maintaining dikes and sta-
bilizing riverbanks. Critics,
including some farm and
landowner groups, say the
department’s reach threatens
the use of private property.
“The jurisdiction has
become unlimited,” Cindy
Alia, a lobbyist for Citizens
Alliance for Property Rights,
said. “Fish and Wildlife’s
jurisdiction can go clear to
the mountaintop.”
The lawsuit stemmed
from rules the Fish and
Wildlife
Commission
adopted in 2015 to enforce
the state’s h ydraulic c ode, a
75-year-old law that directs
the agency to police con-
struction to protect salmon
and fi sh habitat.
Counties argued the
rules unlawfully extended
the department’s authority
beyond the water’s edge.
The counties warned, in
court documents, that the
rules could justify stop-
ping projects based on con-
siderations such as climate
change. More prosaically,
the counties said they didn’t
want to have to obtain a per-
mit from the department
every time they repaved a
bridge, repaired a guardrail
or repainted white lines.
The Department of Fish
and Wildlife argued that
lawmakers directed them to
protect fi sh and that proj-
ects on land could remove
stream-protecting
veg-
etation, and put chemi-
cals and sediment in water.
The department said the
law and other regulations
limit its authority to block
construction.
The court agreed with the
department’s more expan-
sive application of the law.
Writing for the court, Jus-
tice Susan Owens said the
Department of Fish and
Wildlife can require per-
mits for upland projects and
doesn’t have to be abso-
lutely certain the project
will affect fi sh, only reason-
ably certain.
“And we defer to the
department’s expertise in
determining which proj-
ects meet that standard,” she
wrote.
The law says the depart-
ment must approve projects
that “will” alter waterways.
Owens said the word means
the same as “may.”
Justices Sheryl Gordon
McCloud and Steven Gon-
zalez agreed that the depart-
ment should regulate proj-
ects on land. But they wrote
a separate opinion stat-
ing they couldn’t agree that
“will” is synonymous with
“may.”
Several Indian tribes sup-
ported the Department of
Fish and Wildlife’s position
by submitting written argu-
ments to the Supreme Court.
The tribes argued that over-
turning the department’s
rules would end the state’s
longstanding regulation of
construction projects to pro-
tect fi sh.
In recent years, the Leg-
islature has considered but
never passed bills to limit
the Department of Fish and
Wildlife’s authority over
projects that touch water. In
2017, the Republican-con-
trolled state Senate passed a
bill to create a task force to
study the issue. The bill did
not move in the Democrat-
ic-controlled House. Demo-
crats will control both cham-
bers during the 2019 session.
“There’s no realistic
chance they will make a
change we could support,”
said Tom Davis, the direc-
tor of government relations
for the Washington Farm
Bureau .
Department of Fish and
Wildlife biologists have
generally done a good job of
applying the hydraulic code,
but the Supreme Court ruling
may encourage more restric-
tions, particularly with the
push to increase fi sh runs to
feed orcas, Davis said. “To
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