EASTERN OREGON
Saturday, March 26, 2022
East Oregonian
A7
An Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife trail
camera captured this undated image of wolves.
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife/Contributed Photo
Wolves at the door
Federal judge redraws wolf management map, Grant County is ground zero
By STEVEN MITCHELL
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — A judge’s deci-
sion to restore federal protections
for gray wolves last month has put
Grant County at ground zero for
relisting the predators under the
Endangered Species Act.
The decision drew a dividing
line between wolf populations that
can continue to be managed by state
agencies and those that will once
again be governed by more restric-
tive federal rules.
In most of Oregon, the dividing
line is Highway 395, which runs
right through the middle of Grant
County.
While the ruling does not change
anything for wolves in the eastern-
most part of the state, it does cover
wolves in the western two-thirds
of Oregon and puts them back on
the federal endangered species list.
Before last month’s ruling,
wolves in Western Oregon had
been under the fi rst phase of the
state wolf plan, which allowed for
killing wolves in defense of live-
stock and guard animals in limited
circumstances.
Specifi cally, wolves could be
killed if caught chasing or biting
livestock or in situations where
the state could confi rm that a pack
had depredated four times in six
months.
Even then, before ranchers could
use deadly force in a wolf attack,
they had to have been using non-le-
thal deterrents such as electric fenc-
ing or hazing and had to show those
methods had not worked to stop the
attacks. Those options are now off
the table, with federal protections
back in place on Oregon’s west side.
Meanwhile, ranchers east of
Highway 395, where wolves are
under state management, can still
shoot wolves caught biting, chas-
ing or killing livestock or working
dogs.
In many cases, ranchers are
likely to have one herd of cattle
on both sides of the highway. And
with areas of known wolf activity
in both the East and West Murder-
ers Creek Wildlife Units on either
side of the road, Grant County fi nds
itself at the center of the long-run-
ning culture war fl ashpoint around
wolves returning to the West.
Gray wolves were among the
fi rst animals protected after the
passage of the Endangered Species
Act in 1973, and the decision has
remained a hot-button issue ever
since. Predators have a long and
controversial history in the West.
The debate over protecting endan-
gered species, especially wolves,
has pitted urban liberals against
rural ranchers concerned about
losing their livestock to predators.
Roy Vardanega, a third-genera-
tion Oregon rancher, became Grant
County’s first confirmed victim
of wolf depredation last May,
when fi ve cattle on his Fox Valley
ranch were attacked and killed —
although only one of the deaths was
determined by investigators to be a
defi nite wolf kill.
He said the liberal elites who
supported restoring the federal
protections of wolves do not under-
stand that the livelihood of indepen-
dent ranchers like him is at stake
— especially now that one of the
few tools ranchers had to take out
wolves that habitually prey on live-
stock has been taken away.
Vardanega said it is easy for city
dwellers to romanticize wolves
because they do not have to live
with them.
M.T. Anderson, a rancher in
Izee, lost a cow last month to a
suspected wolf attack, although
state investigators were not able to
confi rm wolves caused the animal’s
death.
Anderson said he followed all
of the protocols when wolves were
Wolves at the door
A federal judge has redrawn the map for managing wolves
in the West, and Grant County is at ground zero
Umatilla
County
101
84
Portland
Pendleton
La Grande
5
Grant County
20
26
West
Murderers
Creek
20
101
Eugene
Bend
Redmond
5
84
John Day
East
Murderers
Creek
20
20
Coos Bay
Who makes the call?
395
Salem
Burns
OREGON
Malheur
County
395
78
395
Harney
County
Grants Pass
Medford
Klamath Falls
Source: Oregon
Oregon
Fish & Wildlife
Source:
Department
of Fish and Wildlife
delisted, adding that it was hardly
“open season” on wolves before
last month’s court ruling to put
the predators back on the federal
endangered list. All the state rules
did, he said, was give him the legal
right to protect his livestock and
working dogs.
“And they just take that away,”
Anderson said. “It’s the people that
make these decisions, such as the
judge who ruled to overturn the
delisting. They’ve never had to
deal with this kind of situation. It’s
easy to sit in a courtroom and (make
that decision). It’s not so easy when
you’re the guy on the ground.”
Anderson said it’s hard to fathom
that now, west of 395, where federal
rules apply, it would be a felony for
him to shoot a wolf that was killing
his cattle.
Anderson said livestock owners
now have no recourse when a wolf
essentially steals their animals,
something he fi nds antithetical to
the country’s founding principles.
“That’s not how it works in
America,” Anderson said. “That’s
not how it is supposed to work.”
Even before last month’s court
decision returned some wolf popu-
lations to federal control, many
Oregon ranchers were already
suspicious of the state’s wolf plan,
part of a policy structure that they
believe is rigged against them by
a hyper-liberal majority in Salem.
Vardanega said he does not trust
ODFW and believes the agency has
made wolf depredation too hard to
prove.
The reason, he said, is because
the agency has to toe a left-leaning
political line. Thus, the process of
establishing wolf depredation is
fundamentally skewed to favor an
environmentalist agenda.
Not only that, he said ranch-
ers suff er in ways that the current
system doesn’t even touch. In
addition to above-average losses
in circumstances where they
can’t prove wolf kills, non-lethal
measures mean a lot of additional
work for ranchers that involves
extra vigilance and the cost of
paying a range rider upwards of
$1,500 a month.
Along with paying the range
rider, Vardanega said he is often
anxiously awake at 2 a.m., casting
spotlights into the dark to defend
his herds.
Why were wolves relisted?
Environmental groups sued the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and
former Interior Secretary David
95
EO EO
Media
Media graphic
Graphic
Areas of known wolf activity – Murderers Creek
Federal wolf delisting boundary
Bernhardt in 2021, after the Trump
administration removed wolves
from the endangered species in
the waning days of his term. The
conservation groups argued the
delisting was premature.
In last month’s ruling, Judge
Jeffrey S. White of the United
States District Court for the North-
ern District of California said U.S.
Fish and Wildlife did not take into
account wolves outside the Great
Lakes and Northern Rocky Moun-
tain regions when the agency
proclaimed wolf conservation a
success and removed the apex pred-
ators’ federal protections.
Ironically, removing wolves
from the endangered species list
is one goal that conservative and
liberal administrations have long
had in common.
Even though the decision to
delist wolves came down during
the Trump administration, attor-
neys for the Biden administration
defended the rule that removed
protections, arguing wolves were
resilient enough to bounce back
even if their numbers dropped
sharply due to intensive hunting.
Not only that, but other Demo-
cratic and Republican administra-
tions have tried to delist wolves
over the years, failing every time.
The last attempt to take wolves off
the endangered list came during the
Obama years.
According to John Williams,
who chairs the wolf committee
of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Asso-
ciation, the U.S. Fish and Wild-
life Service has 60 days to decide
whether to appeal the U.S. District
Court ruling. So far, Williams said,
the cattlemen’s association has
not heard if the agency intends to
contest the decision.
Williams said the judge denied
the livestock industry’s request
for intervenor status, which would
have given groups like his the abil-
ity to appeal.
Meanwhile, the Center for
Biological Diversity, one of the
environmental groups behind the
lawsuit that overturned the Trump
administration’s delisting decision,
is trying to extend federal wolf
protections still further.
Collette Adkins, carnivore
conservation director and senior
attorney for the center, said the
organization fi led a petition with
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
last year to restore protections
for wolves throughout the North-
ern Rocky Mountains — includ-
ing Eastern Oregon, thus putting
to blaming wolves.
Rep. Mark Owens, R-Crane, was
one of the bill’s chief sponsors. He
contends environmental groups
targeted the bill not on its merits
but simply because killing it would
make their supporters feel good
about protecting wolves.
“Bumper-sticker politics won
the day without substance,” Owens
said.
Federally listed (USFWS)
State management (ODFW)
wolves east of Highway 395 under
federal jurisdiction as well.
Adkins said the agency would
respond sometime this year.
The Blue Mountain Eagle
attempted to interview representa-
tives of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service for this story, but an agency
spokesperson declined the newspa-
per’s request.
A question of trust
Ranchers who lose livestock to
wolf depredation are supposed to
be compensated for the value of the
animals, but getting paid is not as
simple as fi ling a claim.
First, the cattleman’s associa-
tion’s Williams said, the livestock
producer has to fi nd the carcass
— and they need to fi nd it quickly,
before decomposition makes it
impossible to identify as a wolf
kill. Then, he said, an investigation
has to prove beyond a reasonable
doubt that it was wolves that killed
the animal.
If a wolf kill is confirmed,
Williams said, the rancher can
submit a request for compensation
through their county’s compensa-
tion committee. That’s assuming
the rancher’s county has a commit-
tee — not all counties do.
Finally, he said, there has to be
money available in the county’s
compensation fund. Those funds
can be depleted by prior claims, and
counties must apply to the state for
more money on an annual basis.
The cattlemen’s association
supported House Bill 4127, a
measure in the 2022 Legislature to
provide an additional $1 million for
the state’s wolf compensation fund
to reimburse ranchers for dead and
missing livestock and the cost of
non-lethal methods for preventing
wolf attacks.
After a public hearing last
month, the bill died in committee
without ever getting the chance for
a fl oor vote.
Oregon Wild, which joined the
Center for Biological Diversity and
four other environmental groups
in the lawsuit that restored federal
endangered status for wolves,
opposed HB 4127.
Danielle Moser, coordinator of
Oregon Wild’s wildlife program,
said she wanted to see more trans-
parency in the compensation
program. Other critics argued that
the wolf compensation fund is
prone to misuse, and putting more
money into it would encourage
ranchers not to look for missing
animals but instead simply default
There were 49 confi rmed wolf
depredations across the state last
year, according to Ryan Torland, a
district biologist with the Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife.
ODFW will continue to be the
agency conducting depredation
investigations, Torland said, even
in parts of Oregon where wolves
are now under federal jurisdic-
tion. However, he added, only the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will
be able to authorize lethal take of
wolves in those areas.
“As far as I know ... they have
not approved the take of any wolves
while the wolves have been on the
endangered species list,” he said.
“They possess that authority while
listed, and ODFW does not.”
Torland said an ODFW inves-
tigation of a possible wolf depre-
dation is similar to a detective’s
evaluation of a crime scene. He
told the Eagle that biologists gather
information and send it to the agen-
cy’s wolf experts in La Grande,
who make the call whether a wolf
was responsible for the death of an
animal.
He said ODFW investigators
operate much like sheriff ’s depu-
ties, who would submit evidence
from a crime scene to the district
attorney to decide whether there is
enough to prove someone commit-
ted a crime.
Grant County Sheriff Todd
McKinley agreed with that assess-
ment.
“It is not much diff erent than a
fairly major crime scene,” McKin-
ley said. “You’ve got something
that’s been killed or attacked, and
you’ve got to fi nd the facts. And if
you’re going to do it, you better put
the eff ort into it and do it right.”
McKinley had something like
that in mind when he invited Baker
County Sheriff Travis Ash to speak
to the Grant County Stockgrow-
ers Association about how Baker
County handles wolf depreda-
tions during the group’s meeting at
the Grant County Fairgrounds on
March 17.
Ash said he has heard the
complaints, concerns and argu-
ments from livestock producers
regarding wolf depredations and
how ODFW investigates them.
However, he said, Baker County
is about fi ve or six years down the
road from where Grant County is
when it comes to wolf depredations.
The sheriff said his offi ce runs
parallel investigations of wolf kill-
ings along with ODFW and docu-
ments everything it fi nds so there is
an independent record.
Ash encouraged the ranchers at
the meeting to forge good relation-
ships with the state wildlife biolo-
gists in their district. While he has
butted heads with the top offi cials
at ODFW, Ash said he is on good
terms with the district biologists in
his county.
“Build those relationships
with those guys that have to do
the work,” Ash said. “And under-
stand, though, that if the evidence
isn’t there, they have to say that the
evidence is not there.”
McKinley’s staff is gearing up
to do depredation investigations in
Grant County. McKinley told the
stockgrowers that Undersheriff Zach
Mobley and Sgt. Danny Komning
have been through ODFW’s wolf
training and that he could get other
deputies trained as well.