Page 6C
OUTSIDE
East Oregonian
Saturday, January 13, 2018
Elk hoof disease research in hands of Washington State
Deformities found
in Wallowa and
Blue mountains
By RICH LANDERS
for The Spokesman-Review
Washington State University is
poised to take over inconclusive
research on elk hoof disease
that’s been plaguing elk west of
the Cascades in Washington and
Oregon.
The disease also has been found
in elk in portions of the Blue Moun-
tains and the Wallowa Mountains
near the Idaho border.
The scientist selected to lead the
WSU research will have years of
state-collected data with which to
work.
The Legislature allocated $3
million to WSU for two years of
work on elk hoof disease, said
Charlie Powell, spokesman for the
WSU College of Veterinary Medi-
cine.
The school created a lengthy
job description in July for a new
research scientist to head the
program. The original deadline for
applications was Monday. A selec-
tion from applicants could be made
by February, “but we plan to accept
applications as long as it takes to
get a fully qualifi ed person,” Powell
said.
As of this week, seven applica-
tions were being reviewed.
Wildlife scientists are still many
steps behind the advancement of the
disease, which is similar to hoof rot
found and reasonably controlled in
livestock. But even if a treatment
is found, it would be diffi cult to
deliver to free-roaming elk, state
offi cials say.
The outbreak of painful elk hoof
deformities ramped up in 2007
within two of Washington’s 10 elk
populations – the Willapa Hills and
Mount St. Helens herds.
“Well over half” of the elk in this
hardest-hit region of southwestern
Washington appear to have hoof
disease, said Brock Hoenes, Wash-
ington Department of Fish and
Wildlife statewide elk specialist.
In the past two years, elk hoof
disease has begun advancing into
the Olympic Peninsula herd in the
Skokomish River Valley and the
North Cascades herd in the Skagit
River Valley.
A 16-member Technical Advi-
sory Committee of experts from
multiple states, agencies and univer-
sities agreed in 2014 the disease is
associated with treponeme bacteria,
which are known to cause digital
dermatitis in cattle, sheep and goats.
Critics of the state’s inability to
Courtesy of Larry Gitch via Spokesman Review
An elk shot during an August hunting season near Vader, Washington, had a hoof deformed by foot rot.
“The debilitating effects of TAHD have
contributed to the proportion of
diseased elk dying from malnutrition.”
—Brock Hoenes,
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife elk specialist
fi nd a treatment for the disease have
wanted the Washington Department
of Fish and Wildlife to look into
environmental factors, such as the
possible impacts of aerial spraying
practices used by the timber
industry.
“It’s diffi cult to tease out other
environmental factors separate from
the disease,” said Kyle Garrison,
who became WDFW’s hoof disease
coordinator in July. “How it mani-
fests itself remains uncertain.”
Finding a cure and applying a
treatment to a wild elk population
seems even further out of reach, he
said.
While state researchers are
learning more about the disease
they call “treponeme-associated
hoof disease” (TAHD), little of it is
encouraging.
“It progresses pretty rapidly,”
said Dr. Kristin Mansfi eld, state
wildlife veterinarian.
Citing four years of research with
radio-collared elk, some of which
have been recaptured for evaluation,
she said no cases convincingly indi-
cate that elk can recover after being
infected.
“In the past two years,” she said,
“we’ve confi rmed that affected
animals produce an immune
response, but it doesn’t seem to be
protective.”
No evidence suggests TAHD
poses a risk to humans, offi cials say.
Tests of muscle tissue of affected
game have found the disease in the
hooves does not extend to the meat
or organs.
How the disease spreads is not
clear, Mansfi eld said. Scientists
speculate that the bacteria are trans-
ferred in moist soil via the hooves of
elk or other animals such as sheep
and cows.
Other states are watching the
progress of the disease.
“We were pretty keenly inter-
ested in a couple reports (of hoof
disease) last winter that we investi-
gated,” said Jon Rachael, Idaho Fish
and Game Department state game
manager. “They were tested at the
Idaho Health Lab and turned out
to be an entirely different, noncon-
tagious situations. To this point, we
have not had any confi rmed hoof rot
cases in Idaho.”
A 35 percent decline in the
Mount St. Helen’s herd — one
of Washington’s two largest elk
herds — has been documented
over the past four to fi ve years, said
Hoenes, the state’s elk specialist.
The role of hoof disease is diffi cult
to calculate since the state had been
orchestrating a hunter harvest of
more than 1,000 cow elk in the core
area to bring the herd into balance
with habitat capacity, he said. Poor
nutrition also played a role in the
decline, he said.
“Some people are drawing a
cause-and-result relationship with
TAHD,” Hoenes said, but the role
of the disease in the herd’s decline
couldn’t be ascertained.
“A lot of wildlife questions take
a long time to answer,” Garrison
said.
More than 200 volunteers were
recruited in 2015 to drive south-
western Washington survey routes
in an effort to quantify prevalence
and distribution of the disease.
The volunteers found at least
one limping elk in 48 percent of the
elk groups surveyed, Hoenes said,
although he noted that TAHD isn’t
the only factor that could make an
elk appear to be limping.
A spring 2017 aerial survey over
the same areas detected a limper
in 42 percent of the elk groups
found, he said, noting that number
“increased to approximately 75
percent within the endemic area.”
Of the 2,500 respondents to
a 2016 survey of Western Wash-
ington elk hunters, 6 percent said
they harvested elk with deformed
hooves. The number increased
in the Willapa Hills to 15 percent
and up to 22 percent overall in the
Mount St. Helens area.
Reports of hunters killing elk
with deformed hooves increased
up to 53 percent in a hot spot in
the northwest portion of the Mount
St. Helens herd and the southeast
corner of the Willapa Hills elk herd
area.
Through two years of monitoring,
annual survival rates have ranged
59-68 percent for radio-collared elk
with hoof disease as compared with
78-79 percent for non-TAHD elk,
Hoenes said.
Researchers have attributed 44
percent of mortalities for diseased
elk to malnutrition and have
attributed an additional 20 percent
to cougar predation. In comparison,
only 9 percent of mortalities for
nondiseased elk have been attributed
to malnutrition and 9 percent to
cougar predation, Hoenes said.
“The leading cause of death for
nondiseased elk has been human
harvest — 55 percent — whereas
just 9 percent for diseased elk,” he
said. “Undoubtedly, the debilitating
effects of TAHD have contributed
to the proportion of diseased elk
dying of malnutrition.”
All of the elk in the hardest-hit
area are faced with serious nutri-
tional limitations, resulting in
strongly depressed pregnancy rates,
he said.
Seeking a cure that wildlife
scientists haven’t able to deliver,
the 2017 Washington Legislature
passed a bill sponsored by Sen. Kirk
Pearson, R-Monroe, that shifted
authority for elk hoof disease
research from the WDFW to Wash-
ington State University.
WDFW
had
appropriated
$480,000 to elk hoof disease efforts
in the past two years, with $87,000
from the legislature and the rest
from federal funds and proceeds of
an elk tag auction and raffl es.
It will be up to the new WSU
research leader to determine
whether studies would look into the
possible connection of hoof disease
to forestry practices and chemicals,
said Powell, WSU’s spokesman.
So far, WSU’s new role has
involved preparing lab space,
building a new website in addition
to the one maintained by WDFW,
and planning public outreach and
social media training.
“We want to communicate with
stakeholders and satisfy public
interest in the effort to fi nd a cure
for this debilitating disease,”
Powell said.
“It’s a huge job. It’s a multi-
faceted disease, not just a simple
infection. It’s going to require a
person at WSU with ability to look
at epidemiology and all the data and
information gathered in order to
chart a path forward.”
Wolves kill calves in Southwest Oregon
Attributed to Rogue
pack started by OR-7
By GEORGE PLAVEN
EO Media Group
AP Photo/Don Ryan
In this Dec. 13 photo, a female barred owl sits on a
branch in the wooded hills outside Philomath. A
federal appeals court in San Francisco has upheld a
plan by wildlife offi cials to kill one type of owl to study
its effect on another type of owl.
Court OKs killing a type of
owl to see effect on other owls
Oregon wolves have
notched their fi rst confi rmed
depredation of livestock in
2018.
A 250-pound calf was
found dead and partially
eaten Jan. 4 at Mill-Mar
Ranch in Jackson County,
which wildlife offi cials
attributed
Monday
to
wolves from the Rogue
pack in southwest Oregon.
The Rogue pack was
established by Oregon’s
famous wandering wolf,
OR-7, which traveled more
than 1,000 miles from north-
east Oregon to California
and into southern Oregon
before fi nding a mate in
2014. The pack now has
between seven and 12 indi-
viduals, according to John
Stephenson, Oregon wolf
coordinator for the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service.
Wolves remain listed
as a federally endangered
species in western Oregon.
GPS collar data shows
OR-54, a female member
of the Rogue pack that
biologists believe is directly
related to OR-7, was less
than a mile from the dead
calf the morning it was
found. Investigators also
ODFW
A young female wolf, designated OR-54, recovers af-
ter being caught and fi tted with a tracking collar. The
wolf belongs to the Rogue wolfpack and was detect-
ed near a dead calf found on a Jackson County ranch.
documented numerous wolf
tracks and bite marks consis-
tent with a wolf attack.
Ted Birdseye, who
purchased Mill-Mar Ranch
near Boundary Butte about
two years ago, said wolf
activity is not unusual
around the area, but until
recently the predators had
kept to hunting deer and elk.
Birdseye said he is fasci-
nated by wolf behavior —
he even hand-raised a pup
years ago. At the same time,
the animals are capable of
causing serious damage, he
added.
“They are major apex
predators, and eat a lot of
meat,” Birdseye said. “They
still fascinate me, but I have
to make a living and the way
I do that is by selling these
calves.”
Birdseye, a sixth-gen-
eration rancher, sold the
historic Birdseye Ranch
in Jackson County to Del
Rio Vineyards. He looked
to continue in the cattle
business, mulling land in
British Columbia, Canada
before returning to southern
Oregon and buying the
Mill-Mar Ranch.
“We knew wolves were
out here,” Birdseye said.
Birdseye used a combi-
nation of fl adry fencing
and fl ashing lights to haze
wolves from his fi elds.
Stephenson,
with
the
USFWS, said wolves have
been visiting the Mill-Mar
Ranch for years, but until
recently had not preyed on
livestock.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP)
— A federal appeals court in
San Francisco has upheld a
plan by wildlife offi cials to
kill one type of owl to study
its effect on another type of
owl.
The 9th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals said
Wednesday
that
the
experiment by the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service didn’t
violate a federal law aimed
at protecting migratory
birds. The court says that
law doesn’t prevent killing
one species to advance the
scientifi c understanding of
another.
The ruling came in a
lawsuit fi led by advocacy
groups Friends of Animals
and
Predator
Defense
challenging the agency’s
plan to kill barred owls to
assess their effect on the
threatened northern spotted
owl.
The barred owl may be
displacing the spotted owl in
the Northwest.
Emails to the advocacy
groups weren’t immediately
returned.
Have an outdoor
adventure you’d
love to share?
Email ttrainor@
eastoregonian.
com or call Tim at
541-966-0835.
ODFW sets meeting for Wolf Plan adoption for April 19
Proposal has drawn criticism from ranchers, environmentalists
By GEORGE PLAVEN
EO Media Group
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife
Commission will consider adopting a
long-awaited update to the state’s Wolf
Conservation and Management Plan at
its April 19-20 meeting in Astoria.
A decision was scheduled for Jan. 19
in Salem, but the commission decided
more time was needed to work on the
proposal after drawing criticism from
ranchers and environmentalists alike.
At the last commission meeting
in December, environmental groups
argued the plan would move to lethal
control of wolves too quickly in cases
of livestock predation. Cattlemen, on
the other hand, said they would like
to see management zones for wolves
across the state, with population caps.
The Oregon wolf plan was last
updated in 2010, and a scheduled
fi ve-year update is now three years
overdue.
Public testimony about the plan
will be taken at the Astoria meeting,
or can be submitted via email at odfw.
commission.state.or.us.
Stephenson said the
agency will be ramping up
use of nonlethal deterrents
to prevent wolf attacks
from becoming a chronic
problem at the ranch.
The Rogue pack was
also involved in a confi rmed
depredation in the fall of
2016 on private land in
adjacent Klamath County.
Stephenson said the pack
tends to travel back and
forth between the two
counties.
The Oregon Department
of Fish & Wildlife is in the
home stretch of updating
its Wolf Conservation and
Management Plan. The plan
is scheduled for adoption
at the Fish and Wildlife
Commission meeting April
19-20 in Astoria.
SKI REPORT
Spout Springs
Tollgate, Ore.
CLOSED FOR SEASON
Anthony Lakes
North Powder, Ore.
New snow: 7”
Base depth: 24”
Conditions: Snowed
hard Thursday and
Friday.
Ski Bluewood
Dayton, Wash.
New snow: 5”
Base depth: 24”
Conditions: Strong
storm dumped more
than 9” in last 72
hours.
Ski Fergi
Joseph, Ore.
CLOSED UNTIL
CONDITIONS IMPROVE
Mt. Hood Meadows
Government Camp, Ore.
New snow: Snow/rain
mix Thursday, snow
Friday.