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A8 Region Blue Mountain Eagle Wednesday, November 15, 2017 ‘I screamed, pulled my rifl e up and I shot’ By Eric Mortenson EO Media Group The Oregon elk hunter who shot a protected gray wolf be- lieves he would have been mauled or killed if he hadn’t fi red when it ran at him. Brian Scott is being roasted on social media and criticized by biologists and activists who question his story. An alliance of 18 conser- vation groups sent a letter to Gov. Kate Brown requesting that Oregon State Police re- open the case, with indepen- dent oversight from the Offi ce of the Attorney General and full cooperation from the Or- egon Department of Fish & Wildlife. They’ve keyed in on the bullet’s trajectory, which passed through the wolf’s shoulders, perhaps indicating it was standing broadside to Scott instead of running di- rectly at him. Scott said he can’t explain it and doesn’t know if the wolf perhaps veered sideways as he fi red. Scott said he has re- played the moment in his mind countless times and always concludes he did what he had to do. “I’ve got to live with what I did for the rest of my life,” Scott said in an hour-long phone interview with the Cap- ital Press. “I killed a wolf. It makes me almost nauseous to think about that moment. “I take no pride in this at all,” he said. “The only thing I’m happy about is I made it Known wolf activity, OR30 395 UMATILLA NATIONAL FOREST 84 Pilot Rock 74 Area in detail 204 ORE. Elgin 82 UMATILLA Female wolf shot within this area Ukiah Gr ande Ro 244 UMATILLA NATIONAL FOREST n de La Grande r Riv e Cove 203 UNION Union WALLOWA ALLOWA A WHITMAN NATIONAL TIONAL FOREST 237 North Powder N. Fk. Jo h n D ay R i ve r 395 GRANT NORTH FORK JOHN DAY WILDERNESS Source: Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife home to my wife and children.” Scott, 38, lives in Clack- amas, a suburb of Portland. He and his wife have two el- ementary school-age children, and he owns a small business. He said he has hunted since he was a boy in Texas and described himself as a “meat hunter,” someone who eats what they kill. On Oct. 27 he was on his third day of hunting elk in ODFW’s Starkey Wild- life Management Unit west of La Grande, in Northeast Ore- gon. Scott said he was in fog-shrouded timber and inter- mittently saw animals moving around him, but wasn’t sure if he was seeing a cougar, coyotes or something else. He made his way out of the fog to a ridge top and sat for perhaps 25 min- utes, then walked out into a meadow. Two wolves emerged from the fog to his left, looked 84 10 miles 30 Alan Kenaga/Capital Press at him, then headed in what he described as a fl anking move behind him. A third wolf came running directly at him. “I screamed, got it in my (scope) crosshairs, saw fur and pulled the trigger,” Scott said. He said he whirled around, fearing the other two would attack, but saw them running away. He heard a fourth wolf howl nearby, and believes a pack was around him. ODFW has not offi cially designated a pack in that area; instead refer- ring to it as territory of a col- lared wolf known as OR-30 and his mate. The wolf Scott shot, an 83-pound female, might be their offspring. Badly shaken, Scott returned to his hunting camp about a mile away and told companions what had happened. They went to the site, confi rmed it was a wolf and Scott called OSP and ODFW. A casing from Scott’s 30.06 rifl e was found 27 yards from the carcass. The Union County district attorney’s offi ce in La Grande reviewed the case and decided not to press charges. An OSP spokesman said ev- idence at the scene backed Scott’s story and said the fact that he self-reported killing the wolf was “compelling.” Scott, who was hunting alone at the time, said he could have hidden the wolf’s carcass and told his companions back at camp that the gunshot they heard was him fi ring at an elk and missing. “I feel like I did the right thing,” he said. “I reported it immediately and was ready to face public scrutiny.” That has surely been the case. On social media and in comments to online news arti- cles, posters have called Scott a liar, coward and an irresponsible hunter. Carter Niemeyer, a retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who is considered one of the nation’s top wolf experts, said he didn’t believe Scott’s story because of the bullet’s path. “That’s a broadside shot,” he told the Capital Press. He and others said wolves are afraid of humans. People in such situations should make their presence known, shout, throw things or, if armed, fi re a shot into the ground. Niemeyer said people venturing into the forest should carry bear repel- lent spray, which would work on wolves, cougars or coyotes. Activists point out that wolves have not harmed anyone since they re-entered Oregon and the state established a manage- ment plan. At the end of 2016, ODFW confi rmed 112 wolves in Oregon; the actual number is presumed to be higher. Rob Klavins, Northeast Ore- gon representative for the conser- vation group Oregon Wild, said he’s encountered wolves several times in Wallowa County with- out harm to his hiking party or his dogs, which he keeps on leash in wolf territory. “This person may have felt fear, but since wolves returned to Oregon no one has so much as been licked by a wolf, and that’s still true today,” he said. Derek Broman, an ODFW carnivore biologist, said wolves often travel in pairs or packs, and seeing several together does not necessarily mean they were in a hunting formation. He said wolves are “cours- ing” hunters, meaning they take down prey by chasing, repeated- ly biting and wearing down elk, deer or cattle. They will approach stealthily and charge, seeking to attack in habitat that allows them to move easily, Broman said. Broman said animals in the wild usually avoid people, and wolf attacks on humans are ex- tremely rare. People faced with a wolf should not run, he said, because that would trigger an innate, evolutionary chase re- sponse. Animals have evolved to rec- ognize certain prey, and humans are “something completely dif- ferent” to predators, he said. “On a minute-by-minute basis, wildlife is trying to sur- vive,” Broman said. “If they don’t have a 90 percent chance of success, they’re not going to give it a go. Cougars are so powerful they could do any- thing, but they don’t. “For a wolf to come near is not totally unheard of, and it’s not necessarily concerning,” he said. “We don’t know what the animal was keying in on, or if it was keying in on anything at all.” Scott said critics should put themselves in his shoes. “I felt I had run out of time,” he said. “I’m a dog owner, I grew up on a ranch, I know how fast dogs are. Twenty-seven yards gave me seconds to react.” Scott said he doesn’t de- monize wolves; he considers them majestic animals. He said hunters and others going into the wild should be aware they are more likely now to encoun- ter wolves. He thinks ODFW should do more to educate the public, an effort that could in- clude posting warning signs at the approaches to known pack territory. In the meantime, he’s endur- ing ridicule and doubt about his account. “This isn’t me sitting there watching a wolf, taking a pot shot, then panicking, calling up Oregon State Police and making up an absurd story,” he said. “I was being charged by a wolf,” he said. “The wolf is now dead, and I got to come home. Whether people want to buy that or not, I don’t care.” EO Media Group reporter George Plaven contributed to this report. Tiny Burnt River School shines at national FFA convention By Aliya Hall EO Media Group Shelby Swindlehurst was one of the fi rst to join Burnt River School’s FFA chapter when she was a sophomore at the high school. Now a soph- omore at Eastern Oregon Uni- versity studying agricultural sciences, she was awarded one of the organization’s top honors, the American Degree, at this year’s FFA national convention. The degree is awarded to FFA members who have “demonstrated the highest level of commitment to FFA and made signifi cant accom- plishments in their supervised agricultural experiences,” ac- cording to the FFA website. Less than 1 percent of members are awarded the degree each year. “At fi rst I didn’t real- ize how big it really was Shelby Swindlehurst because I’ve never been around anyone who had it,” she said. “Same with my ad- visor, but she knew it was a big deal. This year when I went to nationals, it was an eye-opener about how big an accomplishment it was.” Swindlehurst is the fi rst in the Burnt River School Dis- trict in Unity to receive this award. Among the requirements for the American Degree are: receiving the State FFA De- gree, being an active member for the past three years, hav- ing completed three years of systematic secondary school instruction in an agricultural education program, having graduated from high school, maintaining records to sub- stantiate an outstanding su- pervised agricultural experi- ence, earning at least $10,000 and productively investing $7,500 and having participat- ed in at least 50 hours of com- munity service. Along with Swindlehurst, seven other students from Burnt River participated at the convention. Shayla Winton, Noah Ray, Stran Siddoway, Shea Swindlehurst and Tyler Belveal went for the experi- ence, and Gustavo Ferrareto and Tim Barabas competed. EO Media Group file photo U.S. Rep. Greg Walden talks about the work he has done in Congress at a town hall meeting earlier this year in Boardman. Bills take different tacks to covering wildfi re costs Lawmakers resolve to end ‘fire borrowing’ By George Plaven EO Media Group If there is one thing Oregon Rep. Greg Walden and Sen. Ron Wyden can agree on, it is changing how the U.S. pays for battling increasingly large and expensive wildfi res burn- ing vast swaths of the Ameri- can West. The current practice, known as “fi re borrowing,” essentially forces the federal government to shift money away from fi re prevention programs to foot the bill for fi refi ghting, which topped a record $2.5 billion in 2017. Walden, Oregon’s lone Republican congressman in Washington, D.C., has called fi re borrowing an “endless cycle,” while Wyden, a Dem- ocrat, recently described it as a “broken system.” Both men are calling for a permanent fi x to the problem, albeit through clashing proposals, where the similarities end. Wyden, along with fellow Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley, have joined a bipartisan group of senators pushing for the Wildfi re Disaster Funding Act of 2017, which would make federal disaster funding avail- able when fi refi ghting costs ex- ceed the 10-year average. In a letter sent Tuesday to White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, the senators urged passing the bill as part of a comprehensive disaster aid package. The Trump adminis- tration has committed to releas- ing that package sometime in the coming weeks. “Year after year, the bro- ken wildfi re budgeting sys- tem shortchanges prevention funding, literally adding fuel to fi res,” Wyden said in a state- ment. “Putting an end to fi re borrowing would at long last allow America to get ahead of the West’s natural disasters — wildfi res.” In October, the Senate did pass a $36.5 billion emergen- cy supplemental that included $576.5 million to fi ght wild- fi res, in addition to $18.7 bil- lion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency Disaster Relief Fund, $16 billion for Na- tional Flood Insurance Program debt forgiveness and $1.27 bil- lion for nutrition assistance for Puerto Rico. That package, however, did not include a long-term fi x for fi re borrowing. Walden, on the other hand, has publicly supported the Re- silient Federal Forests Act of 2017, which recently passed the House. Dubbed the Wester- man Bill for its chief sponsor, Republican Rep. Bruce Wes- terman of Arkansas, the contro- versial bill also includes a pro- vision for ending fi re borrowing with FEMA dollars, but it goes on to address forest manage- ment by expediting certain log- ging projects and fast-tracking environmental review. Speaking to reporters last week, Walden said the bill — a version of which has passed the House for fi ve straight years — will likely require some com- promise in the Senate, though it has a good opportunity of reaching the President’s desk under a more receptive admin- istration. Wyden, however, remains opposed to the bill which he said is “freighted with anti-en- vironmental riders that create more problems than they solve, and that would likely harm for- est health.” He said the Wildfi re Disaster Funding Act is the best way to fi x fi re borrowing and secure dependable funding for future restoration. The Westerman Bill at- tempts to accelerate the pace and scale of that work by pro- viding categorical exclusions for tree thinning projects up to 10,000 acres in size, or 30,000 acres if they are developed by a collaborative group. A categori- cal exclusion would help speed up environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act. The bill also directs the Sec- retary of Agriculture to create a pilot program for resolving lawsuits fi led against forest management projects in arbi- tration, as opposed to going to court, and limits plaintiffs’ ability to recover their attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act. Opponents argue the bill caters to logging interests at the expense of forests, gutting both NEPA and the Endangered Species Act. The bill did pass the House in a bipartisan 232- 188 vote, and has since been re- ferred to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
