A18
STATE
Wallowa County Chieftain
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Environmental groups oppose $1M wolf compensation bill
By MATEUSZ
PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
SALEM — Environmen-
tal groups oppose provid-
ing Oregon ranchers with an
additional $1 million in com-
pensation for wolf problems,
arguing the bill sends a bad
message about the predators.
Supporters of House Bill
4127 counter that as wolves
spread across the state, it’s
necessary to devote more
money to pay ranchers for
lost livestock and for pre-
ventive measures.
“We need to ensure this
fund doesn’t go dry,” said
Rep. Bobby Levy, R-Echo,
referring to the Wolf Man-
agement Compensation and
Proactive Trust Fund created
in 2011.
“We have over twice as
many confi rmed depreda-
tions as we saw in 2020,”
Levy said, noting that
wolves killed 41 cows, 23
sheep, 9 goats and a guard
dog last year.
Based on previous levels
of compensation, that means
ranchers would need more
than $750,000 in compensa-
tion for last year’s confi rmed
losses, she said.
For the current bien-
nium, Oregon has $400,000
per year in federal and state
money authorized for wolf
compensation, said Jonathan
Sandau, special assistant to
the director at the Oregon
ODFW
Environmental nonprofi ts oppose a bill to provide ranchers with an additional $1 million in
compensation for wolf problems.
Department of Agriculture.
On average over the past
three years, the wolf com-
pensation fund has annu-
ally received $425,000
in requests and paid out
$185,000, Sandau said.
At least 30% of the funds
must be dedicated to pre-
vention, but usually that
proportion is much higher,
hovering at about 70% per
year, he said.
Coalitions of environ-
mental nonprofi t groups
have come out against HB
4127, claiming it will pro-
vide funds for missing live-
stock that wasn’t necessarily
killed by wolves.
The Oregon Conserva-
tion Network, a coalition of
30 organizations, opposes
“throwing more money at
missing livestock,” partly
because it will confl ate way-
ward animals with wolf
depredations, said Julie
McGraw, the network’s rep-
resentative at a recent House
Agriculture, Land Use and
Water Committee hearing.
“The more it appears that
wolves are killing livestock,
the worse it is going to be in
terms of the quality of the
relationship with people try-
ing to raise livestock,” she
said.
The number of live-
stock that have allegedly
gone missing due to wolves
far surpasses the number of
confi rmed depredations, said
Julie Moser, wildlife pro-
gram coordinator for the
Oregon Wild nonprofi t.
Meanwhile, livestock go
missing for any number of
reasons, so those claims for
compensation aren’t verifi -
able, Moser said.
“Blaming wolves for any
unaccounted livestock not
only superfi cially infl ates
wolf-livestock confl ict but
it perpetuates a problematic
stigma about wolves,” she
said.
Critics of the bill also
argued the wolf compensa-
tion fund is prone to mis-
use and should be reformed,
while adding more money to
it will create a “moral haz-
ard” by encouraging ranch-
ers not to look for missing
animals.
“Making the fund easier
to abuse is not a solution,”
said Bethany Cotton, conser-
vation director for the Cas-
cadia Wildlands nonprofi t.
The bill’s supporters
pointed out that despite the
critics’ focus on missing
livestock, the added fund-
ing would go to the wolf
compensation program as a
whole.
“There’s a lot of con-
jecture on this but there are
really no facts,” Rep. David
Brock-Smith, R-Port Orford
said.
With wolf depredations
reaching a record level in
2021, it’s worth adequately
funding the wolf compensa-
tion program to encourage
acceptance of state policies
for the species, Rep. Mark
Owens, R-Crane said.
“It’s a trend that’s start-
ing to possibly erode the
social tolerance we started
to develop with the wolf
management plan,” Owens
said of rising depredations.
“Nothing in this bill changes
the wolf management plan.
Nothing in this bill harms
wolves. In fact, this bill is
there to support that social
tolerance of wolf interac-
tions with our public.”
Wolves cause problems
for the livestock industry
that go beyond depredations,
such as lower conception
rates and weight loss, said
Todd Nash, president of the
Oregon Cattlemen’s Associ-
ation and a Wallowa County
commissioner.
“If we paid for the miss-
ing livestock and the con-
fi rmed depredations, it
wouldn’t come close to cap-
turing the cost incurred by
ranchers,” Nash said. “If
there’s going to be fraud in
the system, the fraud is that
we have a compensation sys-
tem and there are not funds
available.”
Judge restores many wolves to endangered species list
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
A federal judge in Oak-
land, California, Thurs-
day, Feb. 10, restored many
wolves in the Lower 48
to the endangered species
list, overturning a decision
by the Trump administra-
tion that was cheered by
ranchers.
U.S. District Judge Jef-
frey White embraced claims
by wolf advocates that
stripping protection was
premature.
The ruling again puts
wolves in Western Wash-
ington, Western Oregon and
California under federal
protection.
The decision does not
cover wolves in Eastern
Washington, Eastern Ore-
gon, Idaho or Montana.
Wolves in those areas will
remain off the federally
protected list of species and
will still be managed by
state offi cials.
The U.S. Fish and Wild-
life Service argued that
wolves throughout the U.S.
were no longer threatened
with extinction because of
robust wolf populations in
the Northern Rocky Moun-
tains and the Great Lakes.
The agency said West
Coast wolves were an
extension of those large and
stable populations.
White, however, said
the agency erred by declar-
ing West Coast wolves are
recovered based on the sta-
tus of wolves in Rockies
and Great Lakes.
Environmental groups
that sued to restore pro-
tection celebrated White’s
decision.
“This is a huge win for
gray wolves and the many
people across the country
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The
agency
said
increased hunting of wolves
in states such as Idaho may
cause it to reconsider its
decision to remove federal
protection.
Under federal protection,
wolves that attack livestock
are not subject to lethal
removal. Washington and
Oregon wildlife managers
have used lethal control to
curb attacks on livestock.
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who care so deeply about
them,” Collette Adkins, car-
nivore conservation direc-
tor at the Center for Bio-
logical Diversity, said in a
statement.
The Biden administra-
tion inherited the lawsuits
and defended in court del-
isting wolves throughout
the Lower 48. At the same
time, the Fish and Wild-
life Service said it will
review the status of wolves
35
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