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Saturday, May 25, 2019
East Oregonian
A9
Ranchers blame eagles for livestock deaths in Brownsmead
By KATIE
FRANKOWICZ
EO Media Group
BROWNSMEAD —
The large bald eagle flew
so low over Ben Parker’s
head, he felt the wind from
its wings.
“She comes right down
overhead,” he said.
The
Brownsmead
rancher suspects it is the
same eagle that has been
been hunting his lambs
this spring. He has lost
four so far.
Longtime
Clatsop
County residents can still
remember a time when
it was rare to see a bald
eagle. The raptors were
once considered on the
brink of extinction and
were only removed from
the federal Endangered
Species Act list in Oregon
in 2007.
Now?
“It’s
basi-
cally almost an explo-
sion,” said Neal Maine, a
Gearhart-based wildlife
photographer.
Bald eagles are found
in nearly every county in
Oregon and their numbers
continue to rise across the
country. With this eagle
explosion comes a new
challenge: How to coexist?
Predation of livestock
by eagles is rare on the
North Coast, according to
state and federal reports.
But the numbers are hard
The Astorian/Nick Myatt
A bald eagle sits perched on a tree branch.
to tease out. Many people
don’t report predation, and
even when they do, it’s not
always possible to be cer-
tain an eagle is to blame.
“It gets a little murky,”
said Russell Hunter, a vet-
erinarian who runs his
practice out of Knappa
and has helped investigate
livestock deaths. “The
predation is real and it’s
emotional and it’s a little
bit hard to determine how
much of it is going on.”
An animal may die in
a field from other causes
but be found with an eagle
or coyote hunched over it
munching away.
When a bald eagle is
clearly the killer, there
isn’t much ranchers can
do about it, anyway. Bald
eagles may not be an
endangered species any-
more, but they are still
protected.
The U.S. Fish and Wild-
life Service issues permits
to haze eagles, but has
not issued any to ranchers
this year. The agency has
fielded numerous inqui-
ries, however.
“(Bald eagles) are
demonstrating
increas-
ing tolerance for human
activity in parts of Wash-
ington and Oregon as their
increasing numbers — and
increasing human popula-
tions — create more over-
lap between human-occu-
pied and eagle habitats,”
said Jason Holm, a spokes-
person for the federal
agency.
Parker lives off Brown-
smead Dike Lane, an area
crossed by sloughs, dotted
with open fields and bor-
dered by tall trees. Prime
bald eagle territory.
The rancher is keeping
his sheep inside the barn
for now while he figures
out how to keep eagles
away. He has started to
experiment with placing
scarecrows and flags in his
fields. There isn’t much
else he can legally do
without a hazing permit.
And he’s holding onto
the carcass of a gutted
2½-month-old lamb. He
found it in a field with a
bald eagle sitting on top of
it, he said, and he’s wait-
ing for federal biologists
to take a look and confirm
an eagle was responsible.
His neighbor, Ed John-
son, went through a simi-
lar process recently.
Johnson, whose house
is just visible from Park-
er’s property, lost three
lambs this spring.
Both men are used to
dealing with predators
like coyotes. Johnson uses
guard dogs to protect his
flock from coyotes and
roaming domestic dogs.
But this is the first year
in the roughly three years
Parker has been raising
lambs that eagles have
been a problem.
Dirk Rohne, a Brown-
smead dairy farmer and
Port of Astoria commis-
sioner, heard from a num-
ber of people about eagle
issues this spring.
Suit: TriMet, police failed to prevent fatal train attack
PORTLAND
(AP)
— The family of light-
rail train stabbing victim
Taliesin Namkai-Meche has
filed a $10.1 million lawsuit
against TriMet and the Port-
land Police Bureau for fail-
ing to arrest and ban Jeremy
Christian from the system
before Namkai-Meche and
another passenger were
killed.
The lawsuit, filed Thurs-
day, says TriMet and police
had two opportunities to
intervene to prevent the
deaths of Namkai-Meche
and Ricky Best in the 24
hours before the attack,
The Oregonian/OregonLive
reported.
The two were stabbed in
the neck on a MAX train
pulling into Portland’s Hol-
lywood transit station May
26, 2017.
The suit says Portland
police didn’t arrest Chris-
tian after they were called
to the Rose Quarter MAX
station on May 25, 2017,
based on a report by an
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African American woman
who said she was riding a
train when Christian threat-
ened her life and exclaimed
he wanted to kill all “Mus-
lims, blacks, Jews.” The
woman said Christian also
threw a Gatorade bottle at
her face, injuring her eye.
“The woman tried to
alert Defendant TriMet’s
train operator, pounding on
the compartment door three
times, but was ignored,”
according to the lawsuit.
“Once off the train, the
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woman found a Portland
Police officer and/or a Tran-
sit Police officer and pointed
out Mr. Christian, but the
officer(s) failed to detain
Mr. Christian, or investi-
gate the incident further.”
The suit also says
that same night, Chris-
tian boarded another train,
ranted about people of vari-
ous religions and threatened
to stab anyone who tried to
stop him. Another passen-
ger caught the rant on video,
according to the lawsuit.
“The
bald
eagles
impacting livestock is a
new one,” he said. “I can’t
say anyone was talking
about that until this year.”
On a positive note, he
added, the eagles seem to
have taken a major bite out
of Brownsmead’s invasive
nutria population.
Johnson has lived in
the area for more than
40 years and maintains a
flock of around 55 ewes
and 80 lambs. He feels that
issues with eagles come in
cycles.
When runs of smelt
— small forage fish that
travel in schools — are
strong in the Columbia
River, he doesn’t see as
many eagles. When smelt
runs are low, well — “It
kind of depends what’s
around to eat and unfor-
tunately sometimes it’s
lambs.”
For the sheep ranchers
in Brownsmead, predation
by eagles has not become
a substantial financial hit.
Ranchers expect to lose
some sheep each year to
predators.
“I’ve
got
nothing
against the eagles,” John-
son said. “They’re beau-
tiful. But at times there
would be seven or eight of
them sitting around wait-
ing for a little action.”
Johnson tends to be
philosophical about it.
He’s not interested in
spending the $100 on a
hazing permit, and then
more money on things like
explosives or other noise-
makers to scare the birds.
It takes time to get the
permit and, besides, the
eagles are not a problem
every year.
In 1989, Maine was part
of a push to establish the
Twilight Eagle Sanctuary
at Cathlamet Bay, not far
from Knappa and Brown-
smead. At the time, advo-
cates estimated there were
only around 40 bald eagles
in the proposed sanctuary
boundaries, about half of
the total population of bald
eagles believed to be in the
entire lower river area.
Now, when Maine is
out documenting eagle
and osprey nests for the
state, it is not unusual for
him to count more than
a dozen bald eagles just
on the drive from Gear-
hart to the Peter Iredale
shipwreck at Fort Stevens
State Park.
He has seen as many
as 21 bald eagles in a sin-
gle tree on an island in the
Columbia River estuary.
Recently, birders counted
75 to 100 eagles in a field
just outside Astoria.
“A lot of wildlife sto-
ries have sad endings,”
Maine said, “and this is
one of those where, ‘Oh
my gosh, maybe we’re too
successful.’”
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