A4
Opinion
wallowa.com
October 5, 2016
Wallowa County Chieftain
The wolves
are doing
just ine
Y
ou must forgive us if we feel a bit gobsmacked
every time a pro-wolf group runs to the judiciary
to complain that their favorite apex predator isn’t
getting enough love from wildlife managers.
It is an act aimed at getting publicity and raising
money and has little or nothing to do with the welfare of
gray wolves in the West.
The wolves are doing just ine. Really.
There is no shortage of gray wolves. Some 55,000 live
in Canada, and 10,000 or
so are in British Columbia
alone. Up to 11,000 live in
Alaska. An estimated 4,000
roam the Great Lakes
The East Oregonian
region of the U.S. More
than 1,200 more are in
Montana and Idaho. The populations in Washington state
and Oregon are growing at an annual rate of more than
30 percent, meaning they will double every few years.
Wolves have even taken up residence in Southern Oregon
and Northern California.
So what, exactly, is the problem? The pro-wolfers
appear to have won the battle, and the war. Why are they
pressing their case against wildlife managers for not
providing “adequate” protection for wolves?
In our opinion, it’s about money. Environmental and
conservation groups can never declare victory and go
home. They can never congratulate themselves for a
“mission accomplished” and move on with their lives.
That’s not how it works.
How it works is the wolf cause is held up as a “matter
of the life and death,” and is usually accompanied by a
plea for money.
If a conservation group were to tell supporters, “Yep,
the gray wolf populations are now in good shape, thanks
to us (and a poorly written Endangered Species Act). It’s
time to get back to our lives,” that group would never
be able to raise a penny. Instead, their money pleas will
continue, along with efforts to stop livestock grazing on
public land. Because of poorly written federal laws and
a judiciary that is easily swayed by fuzzy logic, these
groups will continue.
The irony is the gray wolf would have succeeded
even if radical conservation groups never existed. By
reintroducing wolves to Idaho and Yellowstone National
Park, and with protection from wildlife managers, the
wolf population would have increased even without
conservationists hollering from the back seat.
Wolves are robust, smart and have a survival instinct
unsurpassed in nature. Because they live in packs and
follow food sources, they spread naturally across the
landscape. In fact, they were never reintroduced in
Washington and Oregon; they dispersed from Idaho and
British Columbia naturally. If they ind food, they will
stay. If they don’t, they will move on.
A relatively small number of wolves have created
problems by preying on livestock, killing sheep and
cattle. If every one of those wolves had been killed
immediately, the overall population would still be rapidly
growing.
Yet in Oregon, wolf groups are again heading to
court, arguing that wildlife managers are not providing
adequate protection. Note: Wolves will not be killed
anywhere in Oregon without the express permission of
wildlife managers. In all phases of the state wolf plan,
non-lethal methods of stopping wolves from attacking
livestock must be undertaken before lethal removal will
even be considered.
In our book, that’s good protection for wolves.
So it goes: lawsuits, fundraising, even the occasional
mindless threats against anyone who happens to get caught
up in the issue. And all the while wolves are doing just ine.
EDITORIAL
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Contents copyright © 2016. All rights reserved. Reproduction
without permission is prohibited.
Volume 134
I’ve heard that if you iron out the
peaks and canyons of Wallowa County
it would lay lat the same size as Ver-
mont or the universe or some large area.
If you had ironed my legs last week,
after backpacking with Jordan Manley
straight up and down some of these ridg-
es, I wouldn’t have noticed because my
body was dedicating all available senso-
ry functions to the part of the brain that
says, “What are you doing? Stop this.”
Manley is a river guide, hunting
guide, ski guide, horse packer, cowboy,
former ireighter, traditional archer.
Goes off into Hells Canyon for extend-
ed periods to hone his survivalist skills.
Nickname is “Squatch,” as in Sasquatch.
I’m guessing because you’re always try-
ing to catch a glimpse of him but he’s just
a blurry igure in the distance. That was
my experience anyway. I still can’t feel
my legs after our week-long archery elk
hunt, but do feel strongly that I learned
a lot from Jordan about survival tactics
in the wilderness. Do not go backpack-
ing with Jordan Manley. That’s really the
main thing I learned. It’s just physically
impossible to carry enough ibuprofen for
the task, even in a large backpack.
My plan for hiking in was to take ad-
vantage of a recent invention known as
a “trail.” Jordan, however, was eager to
AND
FURTHERMORE
Jon Rombach
arrive in elk country and favored the ap-
proach of the shortest distance between
two points being dragging Jon up and
down mountains in a straight line until
he falls over from exhaustion. We got
there, eventually, though I’m sure Jor-
dan wishes we’d gotten an earlier start
that day and I wished we’d started last
year.
Last year my great ambition was to
make this same trip. Pack into the hin-
terlands with my bow and arrows and go
after elk. I got ready, months in advance.
Every morning I got up, stretched, exer-
cised, did push-ups, skipped rope, rode
my bike. Even went jogging, which is
high on my list of being low on my list
of things I like to do. I got into as good
of backcountry elk hunting shape as I
could. Then I got lucky and got my elk
on a weekend outing with an easy pack
to the truck. Huh. All those push-ups,
completely unnecessary.
This year I didn’t think I’d have time
for an extended trip so the physical
training dropped off a tad. Does “tad”
mean “completely?” Because the phys-
ical preparation dropped off completely.
Then suddenly my schedule opened up,
I gave Jordan a call and, next thing you
know, I’m wobbling on a ridge on leg
muscles reduced to overcooked fettuc-
cine, a huge pack on my back with sev-
en days of food and Jordan is pointing
at elk.
“See ‘em?” Jordan asked. “Far ridge,
just above timberline. Looks like a good
bull in there.” Oh, I saw ‘em, all right.
And the far ridge was ... far. I explained
to Jordan that I didn’t have an elk tag for
South America so didn’t think we should
go after these particular elk. I also re-
minded him that I’m in my forties. And
tried to explain to him the concept of
how trails work.
I survived hunting with a survivalist.
Even came home with an elk. And I made
a new best friend. That would be Tio,
Jordan’s saddle horse, which I got to ride
when we went back in to pack out the
meat. Love Tio. Can’t say enough good
things about that horse. Very patient. He
let me rub his neck the entire way, whis-
pering, “Thank you, Tio. Thank you.”
Jon Rombach is a horse enthusiast
and local columnist for The Chieftain.
Late to the hunt, but eager
Over the course of 33 years living in
Oregon, I have caught salmon and steel-
head with bait, lures and lies, rowed
whitewater big and small, and backpacked
through wilderness where a herd of elk
thundered across my trail.
But I have never hunted.
Now that I am retired, I want to change
that. This is something I have wanted to
do since I was a kid.
Hunting was not a tradition in my fami-
ly. I did persuade my parents to let me buy
an Army surplus 1903 Springield. The
.30-06 rile cost about $20, and my plan
was to sportsterize it to hunt for deer. I got
part-way through the process, but never
even ired it until a couple of years ago,
after a gunsmith inished it for me. My fa-
ther never hunted, there was no uncle who
had ever hunted, and I moved away from
the few friends who grew up to hunt. With
no mentor, there was no hunting for me.
I moved to Oregon in 1983 to take a
job as southern Oregon correspondent
for The Associated Press, based in Grants
Pass. Raising a family, I barely had time to
teach myself to ish, let alone to hunt. But
that changed when I retired last October.
In trying to understand why I want to
GUEST COLUMNIST
Jeff Barnard
do this, I have been reading a lot. I have
found it is not that unusual. Tovar Ce-
rulli, author of the book, “The Mindful
Carnivore, A Vegetarian’s Hunt for Sus-
tenance,” has even coined a term for this
condition: Adult Onset Hunting.
I have killed plenty of ish. But I am
less certain about killing a warm-blooded
mammal — something with big brown
eyes that can look at me and focus. Peo-
ple tell me they felt a combination of re-
morse and elation at their irst kill. Do I
really want that?
With all the anti-hunting sentiment
out there, defenses of hunting abound.
Hunting controls wildlife that damage
crops and keeps populations at a point the
diminishing habitat can sustain. Hunters
take true responsibility for the meat they
eat. Guns and ammo sales generate seri-
ous money for restoring wildlife habitat
and helping non-game species headed for
extinction. Since 1937, the Pittman-Rob-
ertson Act has drawn a surcharge on guns
and ammunition that goes to states for
wildlife conservation and hunter safety.
Ironically, the surge in sales of assault
weapons and pistols is generating record
amounts of money for conservation. This
year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
distributed $695,141,699 nationally, ac-
cording to its website. Oregon’s share
was $15,457,600.
But what motivates me is more in line
with the late Spanish philosopher Jose
Ortega y Gasset, who concluded that
“The hunter is the alert man.”
Similarly, natural history writer Pete
Dunne writes in his essay, “Before the
Echo,” that as a birdwatcher, he is part of
the audience watching the great play of
the natural world. But as a hunter he is on
the stage, one of the actors.
Fishing demands alertness and atten-
tion to detail. But I want to see and feel
what comes from the hunt.
Jeff Barnard wrote for The Asso-
ciated Press for 35 years, 33 of them
based on Grants Pass, Ore. Since he
retired last fall, he has been writing a
blog about teaching himself to hunt for
the Oregon Department of Fish and
Wildlife.
Religion shouldn’t supersede reason
p ublished every w ednesday by :
EO Media Group
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Wallowa County
Out-of-County
Tagging along with Squatch
a sure path to pain
Many who claim religious freedom
want us to accept that they are attuned
to divine will. God tells them their rights
should permit superseding the civil
rights of others, which in a secular soci-
ety is simply called discrimination.
The argument, with some Constitu-
tional justiications, requests an excep-
tion to their strongly held religious be-
liefs. The “free exercise” clause of the
Constitution does not grant carte blanche
to the effects resulting from such strong-
L
etters to the Editor are subject to
editing and should be limited to 275
words. Writers should also include a
phone number with their signature so we
can call to verify identity.
The Chieftain does not run anony-
mous letters.
ly held religious beliefs. There are limits,
and for good reason. It is not dificult to
see that an individual or religious group
claiming a “right” based on religious
grounds might also infringe on the civil
rights of others (e.g. gay “rights”).
But let’s make this simpler yet. Any
possible action I can think of in a so-
cial context may be claimed as part of
my belief in God’s will. This isn’t some
thought game. I may actually be sincere.
Now, don’t we quickly arrive at your
“God’s will” versus my “God’s will”?
Isn’t this why we also have the Estab-
lishment Clause in the Constitution,
which actually “establishes” our society
as secular with a reliance on reason and
conscience?
Patrick Dunroven
Enterprise
In terms of content, writers should
refrain from personal attacks. It’s ac-
ceptable, however, to attack (or support)
another party’s ideas.
We do not routinely run thank-you
letters, a policy we’ll consider waiving
only in unusual situations where reason
compels the exception.
You can submit a letter to the Wal-
lowa County Chieftain in person; by mail
to P.O. Box 338, Enterprise, OR 97828;
by email to editor@wallowa.com; or via
the submission form at the newspaper’s
website, located at wallowa.com.
LETTERS to the EDITOR