THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
A4
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EDITORIAL
Increase
budget for
ranchers’
wolf losses
The Oregon Legislature has acknowledged that
the state has a responsibility to partially compensate
ranchers for livestock killed by wolves.
Lawmakers created the wolf compensation grant
program a decade ago.
It was a necessary step. Ranchers, after all, aren’t
responsible for wolves returning to Oregon — indeed,
many of them objected to the state allowing wolves to
migrate into Oregon from Idaho, starting in 1999.
(Oregon never transplanted wolves into the state.)
But some ranchers, unlike the vast majority of
Oregonians for whom the presence of wolves has no
direct effect, have sustained fi nancial losses due to
wolves.
The money the Legislature has allocated to the
program is a paltry sum that hasn’t been suffi cient
to cover both the actual losses of livestock as well as
other costs ranchers have borne, including installing
fencing and taking other steps to prevent wolves from
attacking cattle, sheep and other domestic animals.
During 2020, for instance, the Oregon Department
of Agriculture, which administers the wolf compensa-
tion program, distributed $130,164 among 12 counties,
including Baker. That was just 37% of the amount
requested. In 2019 the state awarded $251,529, or
58% of requests.
In Baker County for the period Feb. 1, 2020,
through Jan. 31, 2021, the county requested $47,708
from the state and received $32,708 — 68%. The
county distributed almost all of that to local ranchers
(the county kept $495 as an administrative fee).
One Eastern Oregon lawmaker wants to boost
those percentages. Rep. Bobby Levy, a Republican
from Echo, in Umatilla County, plans to introduce a
bill, when the Legislature convenes Feb. 1, 2022, al-
locating $1 million for the compensation program for
the next two-year budget cycle.
Baker County Commissioner Mark Bennett, who
is a cattle rancher and oversees the county’s wolf com-
pensation program, said he “wholeheartedly” supports
Levy’s bill.
Bennett said he expects that even with the one-
time increase of $400,000 that the legislature ap-
proved for the statewide program earlier this year,
Baker County won’t be able to compensate ranchers
both for their cattle killed by wolves in the Lookout
Mountain pack this summer and fall and for the
money they spent, for fuel and other expenses, to
monitor their herds.
The Lookout Mountain pack’s chronic attacks on
cattle — biologists from the Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) confi rmed that wolves
killed at least nine head of cattle and injured three
others — prompted ODFW Director Curt Melcher to
authorize state workers to kill eight wolves from the
pack this summer and fall.
Statewide in 2021, ODFW has confi rmed 87 ani-
mals killed or injured by wolves, including 51 cattle,
28 sheep, six goats and two guard dogs. That is up by
more than double over 2020, when 32 animals were
attacked or killed by wolves — 28 cattle, two llamas
and two guard dogs.
Compared with Oregon’s state budget, the million
dollars Levy is proposing to spend for wolf compen-
sation barely qualifi es as a pittance. And it’s almost
certainly not enough to fairly compensate ranchers for
the loss of their livestock and to help them deter wolf
attacks — which everyone, those who want wolves
in Oregon and those who don’t, agree is the ultimate
goal.
But boosting the compensation budget by $1 mil-
lion is a solid start to better addressing a problem that,
based on 2021, is growing rather than receding.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
Calling on Baker County to
resist state’s dictatorial control
Editor’s note: The author submitted
this letter to Baker County
Commissioners Bill Harvey, Mark
Bennett and Bruce Nichols.
Bill, Mark, and Bruce, fi rst I am
speaking to each of you as a friend. Our
friendships go back more years than we
care to enumerate.
Secondly, and more adamantly I am
speaking as a frustrated citizen that
has come to the absolute realization
that the continuing tyranny of kate
brown (non-capitalization intended!) has
intimidated, distorted, plus perverted
the purpose and mission of our local
schools, businesses, health providers,
social fabric and other essential needs/
qualities of our community. Our centu-
ries long culture, customs, and historical
heritage are dangerously close to being
forever lost, because of the overreach
of the tyrannical desire of centralized,
illegitimate governmental control!
More, and most importantly, her
attempt at this abusive dictatorial
control of our lives, has and is absolutely
abusive of our most valuable resource.
Namely our children’s ability to learn,
gain experience, mature, achieve their
goals, plus their opportunity to achieve
their highest potential, and quality
of life here in Baker County, IS being
eliminated.
So I HAVE stated the problem,
and defi nitely it is a clear and present
danger.
The opportunity to begin our recov-
ery does lay with your dedication to
the oath of offi ce you solemnly took, ac-
knowledging this challenge, then choos-
ing to lead by listening, being informed,
then understanding the “Constitutional
County” concept. Your adherence to
represent us, your constituents, most as-
suredly will take courage and boldness.
Your integrity to what we hired you for,
will be exhibited publicly by attending
the Baker County United informational
meeting the evening of December 14th.
Guest speaker “Bert” Ramos, county
manager for Lander County, Nevada,
is traveling over seven hours to explain
the success of that county returning the
rightful governing control to the citizens
of Lander County, through becoming a
“Constitutional County.” As this is an
informational meeting only, you have
no worries of “Open Meeting Laws”
violation. Please do not fi nd any way to
make excuses to show this community,
that you are open minded, willing to
fi nd positive, proactive solutions, AND to
get out from under this oppressive rule
from Salem! This is a moment to have
a respected and noble legacy last long
after you leave your positions as county
commissioners.
I can totally assure you that we, (yes
that’s correct, I am a much supporting
member of Baker County United) are
not violent, physical, verbally intimidat-
ing, or any type of threat to anyone’s
safety or comfort. You defi nitely have my
word on that, plus we sincerely invite
County Sheriff Travis Ash, plus any
number of deputies to please attend. Or-
egon State Patrol is more than welcome,
and we would appreciate them being
there also.
I am sincerely committed to this
cause, because I have been blessed to
live and thrive with my constitutional
guarantees, life, liberty, pursuit of happi-
ness(!), AND I will not deny those God-
given rights being assured to my adult
families and most defi nitely I will do
every thing in my power, so my grand-
kids can realize the supreme liberty and
beauty of the United States of America,
Baker County!
In closing I would remind all of you,
“For tyranny to fl ourish, good people
need only remain silent!” I beg you, do
not stay silent, nor acquiesce to dictatori-
al control. We can control our own future
and destiny with the freedoms granted
from God, through the inspiration/adher-
ence to America’s founding documents.
ing South Baker School would be going
deaf by now ... not to mention half of all
Americans! But that was just a scare
tactic and a lie ... the same as their
claims about it being free to install all
those cross-bars. Grant money is NOT
free. The cost would be outrageous and
wasteful.
When I step outside my home, I can
hear every car and truck going by on
I-84 ... 24/7. It never occurred to me to
call the trucking industry and ask them
to stop their lifeline because the noise
interfered with my barbecue.
What will these “complaining Ka-
rens” think up next? Perhaps silencing
the police sirens ... and the ambulance
sound ... how about those loud fi re en-
gines and the rescue helicopter? People
need to “cowboy-up” and fi nd more
constructive ways to use their energy.
America needs more common sense
solutions to much bigger problems then
being offended by life’s conveniences.
Patricia Hanley
Baker City
Curtis W. Martin lives near
North Powder.
Your views
If we silence train horns, what’s
the next target?
For the last few days, the wind has
been blowing just right for me to hear
the trains going by. I have loved listen-
ing to that “klickety klack” sound for
over 74 years now. The railroad tamed
the West and has been a part of Baker
Valley’s history since before any of us
were born. I want to thank the City
Council for following common sense
and not catering to the whiners. If their
reasoning were correct, everyone attend-
OTHER VIEWS
Holding those responsible in shooting
Editorial from New York Daily News:
Michigan prosecutors think they have
a strong involuntary manslaughter case
against the now-apprehended parents of
the 15-year-old boy who fatally shot four
of his high school classmates Nov. 30. We
concur.
Though it is the teen who squeezed
the trigger, it was his dad who just
days earlier bought him as a gift what
would become the murder weapon, even
though Michigan’s legal age of handgun
ownership is 18. And just hours before
the high school turned into a live-fi re
zone, both mother and father were called
to the school to meet with administrators
and shown a drawing the boy had made
with a person bleeding and the words
“help me.”
At the meeting, says prosecutor
Karen McDonald, the two “were advised
that they were required to get their son
into counseling within 48 hours.” Yet, she
says, never did they mention that their
son might have a weapon on his person,
even as they resisted a request to take
him home for the day.
Whether two parents will be found
guilty in what is a relatively novel
prosecution remains to be seen, but there
is a larger issue here. Though disturbed
young gunmen are legally guilty of mur-
der at Sandy Hook Elementary, and at
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
in Parkland, Florida, and at Columbine
High School, not to mention in so many
killings that’ll never make the front page,
their impulse to murder did not materi-
alize out of thin air.
Guns don’t kill people, say the NRA
zealots, people kill people. Of course
they’re dead wrong about that — people
with guns can kill with ease and speed
and callousness that people without
guns cannot — but the grain of truth is
that it’s rarely only a single trigger puller
who causes carnage. While the offi cial
culpability usually rests with one, mor-
ally many are implicated. Someone gives
a young, unstable man a gun. Someone
feeds him with toxic revenge fantasies.
Someone else sees warning signs and
looks the other way. Few are guilty;
many are responsible.