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Wallowa County Chieftain
Wolves:
Continued from Page A1
remained a hot-button issue
ever since. Predators have a
long and controversial history
in the West. The debate over
protecting endangered spe-
cies, especially wolves, has
pitted urban liberals against
rural ranchers concerned
about losing their livestock to
predators.
Roy
Vardanega,
a
third-generation
Oregon
rancher, became Grant Coun-
ty’s fi rst confi rmed 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 deter-
mined by investigators to be a
defi nite wolf kill.
He said the liberal elites
who supported restoring the
federal protections of wolves
do not understand that the
livelihood of independent
ranchers like him is at stake
— especially now that one
of the few tools ranchers had
to take out wolves that habit-
ually prey on livestock has
been taken away.
Vardanega said it is easy
for city dwellers to romanti-
cize 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 investiga-
tors were not able to confi rm
wolves caused the animal’s
death.
Anderson said he fol-
lowed all of the protocols
when wolves were delisted,
adding that it was hardly
“open season” on wolves
before last month’s court rul-
ing 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
A question of trust
A BRIEF HISTORY OF WOLF RECOVERY
Gray wolves were once widespread in the United
States but were trapped, hunted and poisoned
until they were all but extirpated from the Lower
48 by the middle of the last century. The last
native wolf in Oregon is believed to have been
killed in the late 1940s.
Fork of the John Day River and returned the ra-
dio-collared female, known as wolf B-45, to Idaho.
In the mid-1990s, however, gray wolves were
reintroduced in Central Idaho and Yellowstone
National Park, and since then the species has ex-
panded beyond expectations, both in population
and geographical area.
In 2015, the Oregon Department of Fish and
Wildlife removed wolves from the state endan-
gered species list, although the federal Endan-
gered Species Act designation remained in the
state’s western two-thirds.
There are now more than 1,600 wolves in the
Northern Rockies, including at least 173 in Ore-
gon, according to recent estimates.
In 2020, the Trump administration removed
federal Endangered Species Act protections from
gray wolves across 44 states, including Western
Oregon.
However, wolves were never deliberately reintro-
duced to Oregon. They came here on their own,
dispersing from established packs in neighboring
states.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife captured the fi rst known
returning wolf in Oregon in 1999 near the Middle
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 coun-
try’s founding principles.
“That’s not how it works
in America,” Anderson said.
“That’s not how it is sup-
posed to work.”
Even before last month’s
court decision returned some
wolf populations to federal
control, many Oregon ranch-
ers 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 depre-
dation too hard to prove.
The reason, he said, is
because the agency has to toe
a left-leaning political line.
Thus, the process of estab-
lishing wolf depredation is
fundamentally skewed to
favor an environmentalist
agenda.
Not only that, he said
ranchers suff er in ways that
the current system doesn’t
even touch. In addition to
In 2011, Congress removed federal protections
for the Northern Rocky Mountains wolf popu-
lation, including Montana, Idaho and Eastern
Oregon.
A coalition of environmental groups fi led suit in
early 2021 to have federal protections restored,
and on Feb. 10 of this year, a U.S. district judge
granted their request.
above-average losses in cir-
cumstances where they can’t
prove wolf kills, non-lethal
measures mean a lot of addi-
tional 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 Wild-
life Service and former Inte-
rior Secretary David Ber-
nhardt 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 Jeff rey S. White of the
United States District Court
for the Northern District of
California said U.S. Fish
and Wildlife did not take
into account wolves outside
the Great Lakes and North-
ern Rocky Mountain regions
when the agency proclaimed
wolf conservation a success
and removed the apex preda-
tors’ federal protections.
Ironically,
removing
wolves from the endan-
gered species list is one goal
o
l
l
e
H
g
n
i
r
Sp
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that conservative and liberal
administrations have long
had in common.
Even though the deci-
sion to delist wolves came
down during the Trump
administration,
attorneys
for the Biden administra-
tion defended the rule that
removed protections, argu-
ing wolves were resilient
enough to bounce back even
if their numbers dropped
sharply due to intensive
hunting.
Not only that, but other
Democratic and Republican
administrations 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 Wil-
liams, who chairs the wolf
committee of the Oregon
Cattlemen’s Association, the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser-
vice has 60 days to decide
whether to appeal the U.S.
District Court ruling. So
far, Williams said, the cat-
tlemen’s association has not
heard if the agency intends
to contest the decision.
Williams said the judge
denied the livestock indus-
try’s request for intervenor
status, which would have
given groups like his the
ability to appeal.
Meanwhile, the Center
for Biological Diversity, one
of the environmental groups
behind the lawsuit that over-
turned the Trump adminis-
tration’s delisting decision,
is trying to extend federal
wolf protections still further.
Collette Adkins, carni-
vore 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 protec-
tions for wolves throughout
the Northern Rocky Moun-
tains — including Eastern
Oregon, thus putting 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 rep-
resentatives of the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service for this
story, but an agency spokes-
person declined the newspa-
per’s request.
Ranchers who lose live-
stock to wolf depredation are
supposed to be compensated
for the value of the animals,
but getting paid is not as sim-
ple as fi ling a claim.
First, the cattleman’s
association’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 confi rmed,
Williams said, the rancher
can submit a request for com-
pensation through their coun-
ty’s compensation commit-
tee. That’s assuming the
rancher’s county has a com-
mittee — 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 coun-
ties must apply to the state
for more money on an annual
basis.
The cattlemen’s associ-
ation 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 live-
stock and the cost of non-le-
thal methods for preventing
wolf attacks.
After a public hearing last
month, the bill died in com-
mittee without ever getting
the chance for a fl oor vote.
Oregon Wild, which
joined the Center for Biolog-
ical Diversity and four other
environmental groups in the
lawsuit that restored federal
endangered status for wolves,
opposed HB 4127.
Danielle Moser, coordi-
nator of Oregon Wild’s wild-
life program, said she wanted
to see more transparency 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 to
blaming wolves.
Rep.
Mark
Owens,
R-Crane, was one of the bill’s
chief sponsors. He contends
environmental groups tar-
geted the bill not on its mer-
its but simply because killing
it would make their support-
ers feel good about protecting
wolves.
“Bumper-sticker politics
won the day without sub-
stance,” Owens said.
Who makes the call?
There were 49 confi rmed
wolf depredations across
the state last year, accord-
ing to Ryan Torland, a dis-
trict biologist with the Ore-
gon 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 Wild-
life 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
investigation of a possible
wolf depredation is similar
to a detective’s evaluation
of a crime scene. He told the
Eagle that biologists gather
information and send it to the
agency’s wolf experts in La
Grande, who make the call
whether a wolf was responsi-
ble for the death of an animal.
He said ODFW investiga-
tors operate much like sher-
iff ’s deputies, who would
submit evidence from a crime
scene to the district attor-
ney to decide whether there
is enough to prove someone
committed a crime.
Grant County Sheriff
Todd McKinley agreed with
that assessment.
“It is not much diff er-
ent than a fairly major crime
scene,” McKinley 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 Sher-
iff Travis Ash to speak to the
Grant County Stockgrowers
Association about how Baker
County handles wolf depre-
dations during the group’s
meeting at the Grant County
Fairgrounds on Thursday,
March 17.
Ash said he has heard
the complaints, concerns
and arguments from live-
stock producers regard-
ing 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 investiga-
tions of wolf killings along
with ODFW and documents
everything it fi nds so there is
an independent record.
Ash encouraged the
ranchers at the meeting to
forge good relationships with
the state wildlife biologists
in their district. While he has
butted heads with the top offi -
cials at ODFW, Ash said he is
on good terms with the dis-
trict biologists in his county.
“Build those relationships
with those guys that have to
do the work,” Ash said. “And
understand, though, that if
the evidence isn’t there, they
have to say that the evidence
is not there.”
McKinley’s staff is gear-
ing up to do depredation
investigations in Grant
County. McKinley told the
stockgrowers that Under-
sheriff Zach Mobley and
Sgt. Danny Komning have
been through ODFW’s wolf
training and that he could
get other deputies trained
as well.