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About Wallowa County chieftain. (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Or.) 1943-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 18, 2015)
A4 Opinion wallowa.com November 18, 2015 Wallowa County Chieftain Oregon wolf ruling based on facts, not undue fears W olves are thriving across the West. In Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon they are becoming a ¿[ture on the landscaSe. $ wolf SacN has even turned uS in Northern California. In that conte[t, the Oregon )ish and Wildlife Commission made a solid decision last weeN to taNe wolves off the state¶s endangered sSecies list. )our breeding Sairs have been in Eastern Oregon for three consecutive years, as is required in the state wolf Slan. $ctually, the Voice of the Chieftain number of breeding Sairs is nine, signaling that the SoSulation is far healthier than the wolf Slan requires. $dd that to the fact that a minimum of 82 wolves are Nnown to live in Eastern and 6outhwestern Oregon and there is little reason to worry about wolves disaSSearing. Their numbers have increased from 14 in 2009 to 82 this year. $nd remember Those are minimum numbers that wildlife managers have con¿rmed. The actual SoSulation may be far larger. The criteria for delisting the wolf in Oregon were in the state¶s wolf management Slan, which was the Sroduct of Srolonged and Sublic debate when it was written. Now that wolves have met those criteria for delisting, some folNs are looNing for looSholes to bacN out of the Slan. They are way out of line. )irst, wolves in the western twothirds of the state remain Srotected Must as they have been all along. Only in the eastern onethird of the state, where all but seven of the wolves live, are they affected at all, by allowing wildlife managers more Àe[ibility. 6econd, Oregon ranchers, who have been most affected by the return of wolves, have lived uS to their Sart of the deal. They¶ve done it in the face of a Sredator that as of the ¿rst of the year had Nilled 114 cattle, sheeS and herding dogs and inMured many more. That is only the number of Nillings that wildlife managers con¿rmed. /ast year, for e[amSle, 4 deSredation investigations resulted in only 11 con¿rmed wolf Nills. Though ranchers are indemni¿ed for their livestocN, it doesn¶t reSay them for the weight their other cattle lost because of wolves or the e[tra hours and effort required to Srotect against wolf attacNs. Third, the Endangered 6Secies $ct was aimed at Srotecting Slants and animals that were in danger of e[tinction. Wolves do not ¿t in that category. They are robust Sredators that follow the food and do not need sSecial treatment. In fact, wolves were never reintroduced in Oregon or Washington state they sSilled over from Idaho and %ritish Columbia, where the estimated wolf SoSulation is 10,000. More than 50,000 wolves live in Canada and 0,000 live in $lasNa, It de¿es logic to argue that the wolf is on the brinN of e[tinction. <et earnest grouSs of activists insist that, somehow, wolves are getting short shrift in Oregon. 6ome are saying the state¶s biologists didn¶t MumS through an adequate number of hooSs before recommending that wolves be delisted. They say they might sue. If they do, we¶ll Nnow their concern isn¶t for wolves, which are continuing to thrive and multiSly desSite all of the fearful Sredictions activists have made over the years. EDITORIAL USPS No. 665-100 P.O. Box 338 • Enterprise, OR 97828 Of¿ce 29 1: )irst 6t., Enterprise, Ore. Phone 27 • )ax 2392 :allowa &oXnt\¶s 1ewspaper 6ince 88 Enterprise, Oregon M EMBER O REGON N EWSPAPER P UBLISHERS A SSOCIATION P UBLISHER E DITOR R EPORTER R EPORTER N EWSROOM ASSISTANT A D S ALES CONSULTANT G RAPHIC D ESIGNER O FFICE MANAGER Marissa Williams, marissa@bmeagle.com Scot Heisel, editor@wallowa.com Stephen Tool, stool@wallowa.com Kathleen Ellyn, kellyn@wallowa.com editor@wallowa.com Jennifer Powell, jpowell@wallowa.com Robby Day, rday@wallowa.com Cheryl Jenkins, cjenkins@wallowa.com 3eriodical 3ostage 3aid at EnterSrise and additional mailing of¿ces 1 Year $40.00 $57.00 6XEscriptions mXst Ee paid prior to deliYer\ 6ee the Wallowa County Chieftain on the Internet www.wallowa.com facebooN.comWallowa _ twitter.comwcchieftain 3O6TM$6TER ² 6end address changes to Wallowa County Chieftain 3.O. %o[ 8 EnterSrise, OR 97828 Contents copyright © 2015. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited. Volume 133 The 2015 ¿re season was worse than any on record and summertime temSeratures are steadily escalating. Increasing the average summer temSerature by Must one degree )ahrenheit results in an increase of 420 wild¿res in the state annually, according to estimates by the Oregon DeSartment of )orestry. Research and news articles have focused on the need for forest fuels reduction, creating defensible sSace around rural dwellings and imSroving ¿re¿ghting methods. However, effective landuse Slanning has SerhaSs the greatest Sotential for reducing wild¿re threat. The 86D$ )orest 6ervice de¿nes transition areas Must outside communities as the “Wildland8rban Interface.” 6ince 190, the SoSulation in these areas has MumSed from 25 million to 140 million SeoSle. Today, about 0 Sercent of all new homes across the nation are being constructed in the Wildland 8rban Interface, desSite one historic wild¿re season after another. The result is sNyrocNeting ¿re¿ghting costs that are ultimately borne by the Sublic. The Oregon DeSartment of )orestry estimates that the average cost of 19 to Srotect an additional home GUEST COLUMN Katherine H. Daniels in an already develoSed area MumSs to a whoSSing 1,545 to Srotect an additional home in a more rural area. Dwellings in remote and rural areas Sut ¿re¿ghters at added risN. Historically trained in basic wildland ¿re behavior and safety, using ¿reline construction and tools, ¿re¿ghters today must have numerous sSecialized sNills geared toward Srotecting homes ² establishing ¿re Serimeters, conducting burnouts around homes and dealing with the dangers of SroSane tanNs, gas and electrical lines. When the focus has shifted from ¿ghting ¿re to saving homes, forests are left to burn. Oregon’s statewide landuse Slanning Srogram discourages the Nind of develoSment that imSerils ¿re¿ghters and homes in this way. ImSlemented by communities statewide, it has signi¿cantly reduced the number of dwellings built in our Wildland8rban Interface since the mid1980s, when comSared to other states. While over the course of a decade Oregon lost almost three times as much acreage to wild¿re as did Washington, the number of dwellings destroyed was signi¿cantly greater in Washington, according to the *eograShic $rea Coordination Centers and the National Interagency )ire Center. In the 2014 and 2015 seasons alone, seven times more dwellings were destroyed in Washington than in Oregon. The Sresence of dwellings in wildland areas further increases the risN of wild¿re. In the 2015 ¿re season four times as many acres burned in Washington as in Oregon where wildland dwellings resulted in ¿res with “human causes”. Over nine Sercent of Oregon’s homes are currently at high or e[treme risN for wild¿re, according to 2015 data from 9erisN Insurance 6olutions. Current limits on dwellings and other develoSment on forest land is Saying off for Oregon by minimizing wild¿re risN to new develoSment, reducing ¿re¿ghting costs and Srotecting human lives. Katherine H. Daniels is a farm and forest lands specialist with the Oregon A wilderness proposal gone wild Residents of Malheur County, Ore., are wise to be susSicious of a Slan to designate 4 Sercent of their county as a wilderness area. They should continue to resist the SroSosal any way they can. It’s a tradition among outgoing Dem ocratic Sresidents to set aside massive swaths of the West as wilderness areas. They do it to maNe themselves looN Sret ty to the environmental community. Jimmy Carter holds the record, setting aside 2 million acres of $lasNa as wil derness during his single term. %ill Clinton set aside 9.2 million acres of wilderness as he was heading out the door. Now it’s 3resident %aracN Obama’s turn. You’ll note that in all of the above cases, the SeoSle who live in those areas were steamrolled. That’s why we’re concerned about the Owyhee Canyonlands Conservation 3roSosal, which would designate a little more than 2 million acres as wilderness and 50 miles of rivers as wild and scenic rivers. 8nder the Wilderness $ct of 194, ³no temSorary road, no use of mo tor vehicles, motori]ed equiSment or motorboats, no landing of aircraft, no other form of mechanical transSort and no structure or installation” is allowed e[ceSt as a way to meet the minimum requirements of administering the area. Even using vehicles to taNe out GUEST EDITORIAL From the Capital Press MuniSer trees, which ruin greater sage grouse habitat, is banned. $ federal Mudge recently ruled that motorized vehicles couldn’t be used to helS clear MuniSers from a wilderness study area near 6teens Mountain in southcentral Oregon. $nd note the name of the Slaintiff in the lawsuit the Oregon Natural Desert $ssociation, which is behind the Slan for Malheur County. Though SroSonents such as OND$ Sromise that grazing allotments would be grandfathered in, ranchers there ¿nd little comfort in the assurance. %ob 6Ninner, a rancher, reminded the 500 SeoSle who gathered in the $drian +igh 6chool gym recently that SroSo nents of the Slan, such as OND$, are litigators. “Once this gets to court, all bets are off,” he told the crowd. The irony of the meeting was Srovid ed when %rent )enty, e[ecutive director of OND$, told the crowd he wants to stoS mining and oil and gas drilling. “We all care about the Owyhee and want to NeeS it the way it is today, we Must may disagree on how we do that,” he said. Indeed. The most troubling asSect of this Slan is the Obama administration hiding its in tentions from members of Congress. ReS. *reg Walden, ROre., reSresents Malheur County. +e says he has asNed the admin istration to tell the truth about the Slan, but has thus far received no answer. 6tate ReS. Cliff %entz, ROntario, or ganized the $drian meeting and Slans to send a video of it to the White House in hoSes that members of the administration will understand what’s at staNe. We often write about the “urbanru ral” divide. This is the Serfect e[amSle of where it’s getting wider. 3roSonents ² nearly all from cities ² want to imSose wilderness status on rural residents. The urbanites don’t care what the rural residents thinN or that it will ultimately eviscerate the local economy. There is Srecious little in the record to show that the Obama administration will listen to the SeoSle of Malheur County. The administration has a long tracN re cord of imSosing regulatory shocN and awe on rural Sarts of the West. The Envi ronmental 3rotection $gency’s Waters of the 8nited 6tates regulations and the De Sartment of /abor’s “hot goods” actions against farmers are Must two Srominent e[ amSles of how federal agencies oversteS their statutory authority. $nd consider this There is also noth ing in the record to indicate that SroSo nents of designating more wilderness in Malheur County care even a tiny bit about the SeoSle who live there ² or anywhere else in the rural West. Please share stories about Leon Lee P UBLISHED EVERY W EDNESDAY BY : EO Media Group Subscription rates (includes online access) Wallowa County Out-of-County Land-use planning can curtail ¿res To the editor: We are the Sarents of our beloved /eon E. /ee, who Sassed away $Sril 2, 200. We are writing a booN of memo ries for our family and are in hoSes that some of you can helS to ¿ll his memory booN. /ee worNed at Hubbard Ranch for several years, later starting his own busi ness called “/ee’s E[cavation.” His slo gan was “We dig Wallowa County”. He L etters to the Editor are subMect to editing and should be limited to 275 words. Writers should also include a Shone number with their signature so we can call to verify identity. The LETTERS to the EDITOR also was a volunteer ¿reman and helSed several neighbors in Imnaha by Surchas ing an old ¿re trucN that he refurbished. He also helSed battle several forest ¿res, cutting ¿rebreaNs with his bulldozer. If you Nnew /ee and can remember a story or an e[Serience that you could Chieftain does not run anonymous let ters. You can submit a letter to the Wal lowa County Chieftain in Serson by mail to 3.O. %o[ 8, EnterSrise, OR share with us, we would greatly aSSre ciate your helS. His memorial at the JoseSh Church was “standing room only”. /ee certain ly was well thought of by numerous friends, neighbors and business $ssoci ates. ThanN you for all the helS in sharing your memories of /eon E. /ee. Edward and Carol Lee-Geeck Ashland 97828; by email to editor@wallowa. com; or via the submission form at the newsSaSer’s website, located at wal lowa.com. DroS down the “OSinion” menu on the navigation bar to see the