A16
NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wolf kill
Continued from Page A1
Contributed photo
A dead cow found Saturday, May 8, on Roy Vardenaga’s Fox Val-
ley ranch.
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The Oregon campaign
recently cleared its fi rst
regulatory hurdle, submit-
ting 1,000 sponsorship sig-
natures for verifi cation on
April 28. If approved, sup-
porters will need to collect
112,020 signatures to place
the initiative on the Novem-
ber 2022 ballot.
Michelson did not return
calls for comment.
According to state law,
a person commits animal
abuse if they “intentionally,
knowingly or recklessly
cause physical injury to an
animal,” or “cruelly cause
the death of an animal,”
except when practicing
good animal husbandry. The
petition seeks to remove
that exemption.
“IP13 doesn’t change our
defi nition of abuse, it merely
changes who is considered
above the law,” the “Yes on
IP13” website states.
Cooper said the petition
is the biggest threat to Ore-
gon’s livestock industry in
decades.
“I think it would leave
producers in incredibly
uncertain territory,” she
said. “It is very dangerous
territory for folks.”
Perhaps the cruelest
twist, Cooper said, is the
eff ect the initiative would
have on 4-H and FFA pro-
grams. Animal abuse in Ore-
gon is considered a Class A
misdemeanor but is a felony
if committed in the presence
of a minor child.
“You think of 4-H pro-
grams, and people who have
artifi cial insemination pro-
grams, and all of a sudden
anybody helping them with
their projects could be con-
sidered a felon,” Cooper
said. “That’s just wild.”
Supporters say the initia-
tive would not ban the sale
of meat, leather and fur in
Oregon.
“It would require that ani-
mals be allowed to truly live
a good life free from abuse,
neglect and sexual assault,”
the campaign website states.
“After an animal lives a full
life, and exits the world nat-
urally and humanely, this
initiative does not prohibit a
farmer from processing and
distributing their body for
consumption.”
But Tom Sharp, a Harney
County rancher and pres-
ident of the Oregon Cat-
tlemen’s Association, said
that is not an economically
viable business model for
producers.
“How would a pro-
ducer ever plan on manag-
ing a herd of cattle, until
some uncertain date when
that herd has reached their
full and natural lifespan?”
Sharp said. “At that point,
it’s impractical to take
those animals to market for
processing.”
Oregon has 13,000 cat-
tle ranchers statewide with
1.3 million head of cattle.
In 2019, cattle and calves
ranked as the second-most
valuable agricultural com-
modity, at $652 million.
Sharp said the petition could
put those businesses at risk.
“I don’t see, from a busi-
ness standpoint, how that
would pencil out for any of
these beef producers,” he
said.
The initiative doesn’t
only target agriculture. It
would also erase animal cru-
elty exemptions for hunting,
fi shing, wildlife manage-
ment, rodeos and scientifi c
research, among others.
Amy Patrick, outreach
coordinator for the Ore-
gon Hunters Association,
said the initiative is ringing
alarm bells and could poten-
tially make hunting illegal
in the state.
“It’s an attempt to get at
fi shing, trapping, hunting
and additional wildlife man-
agement practices,” Pat-
rick said. “Removing the
exemptions would allow
them to be classifi ed as ani-
mal abuse. It’s not animal
abuse by any stretch of the
imagination.”
Dave Dillon, executive
vice president of the Ore-
gon Farm Bureau, said the
organization is assembling
a broad coalition of groups
and businesses to oppose
the initiative.
“There is a lot of con-
cern among members,” Dil-
lon said. “It’s going to take
a lot of hands. That’s the job
ahead of us, and we’ll be
ready to do it.”
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21. According to the agency, a
breeding male and female of the
Northside wolves bred for the
fi rst time last year.
A breeding pair is an adult
male and an adult female with
at least two pups who survived
to Dec. 31 the year of their
birth, and a pack is four or more
wolves traveling together in
winter.
Three wolves were counted
in Northside this year, along
with six in the Desolation unit
and one in Murderers Creek,
according to Torland. He said
there is likely a second wolf in
Murderers Creek that showed
up after winter, but it would not
be included until next year’s
count.
Vardenaga said, roughly
two years ago, ODFW told
him a collared wolf had been
in the area. He said, over the
years, he has had cattle go
missing.
Vardenaga said he esti-
mates that the loss of his live-
stock would cost him $12,000
to $20,000. He told the Eagle
the determination that only one
of the kills was attributed to
wolves was frustrating.
Vardenaga, a retired fi re-
fi ghter and a third-generation
rancher, went back to ranching
after being diagnosed with mul-
tiple sclerosis in 1997. He said
the income he brings in from
ranching keeps his medical
costs down.
According to ODFW,
wolves east of highways 395-
78-95, are delisted both fed-
erally and at the state level.
Within this zone, livestock pro-
ducers or their agents may shoot
a wolf caught in the act of bit-
ing, wounding, killing or chas-
ing livestock or working dogs
on land they own or lawfully
occupy.
In 2020, confi rmed wolf
depredations in the East Wolf
Management Zone included
seven dead cows, fi ve injured
cows, one dead llama, one
injured llama, one dead work-
ing dog and one injured work-
ing dog across Baker, Union,
Wallowa, Umatilla, Morrow
and Harney counties, accord-
ing to the Oregon Wolf Conser-
vation and Management 2020
annual report.
The Eagle/Steven Mitchell
Organizers count ballots May 12 at the arena at the Grant County Fairgrounds. About 200 attendees nearly unanimously voted to
declare an emergency caused by Gov. Kate Brown’s COVID-19 restrictions.
Protest
Continued from Page A1
Lundbom’s speech
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Anti-ag
cases lacked evidence of a wolf
attack. However, due to a lack
of a carcass to test, they could
not rule out the likelihood of a
wolf attack.
Rancher Roy Vardenaga
said in a phone interview
Thursday that his grandchildren
found fi ve dead cows Saturday
on a 400-acre pasture on the
east side of Highway 395.
“I’ve never had anything
like this happen before,” he
said.
ODFW identifi ed the
Northside wildlife unit and
Long Creek as an area of
known wolf activity on April
Wednesday, May 19, 2021
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Ron Lunbom, John Day’s
mayor, told the crowd that he
did not know that joining Baker
City and Sandy to sue the gov-
ernor would be the right thing
for John Day. He said the city
has worked with 10 state agen-
cies and received over $6.5 mil-
lion in grants and loans to fund
a $12 million wastewater treat-
ment project. Someone in the
crowd asked him if the money
was worth laying down to die.
Lundbom said he disagreed
with that sentiment.
He told the crowd that he
thought the state agencies were
doing their job in protecting the
public.
Lundbom told Newman that
“with all due respect,” while he
did not agree with mask man-
dates, Newman did not have
OSHA “breathing down his
neck.” Lundbom, owner of Napa
Autoparts in John Day, said that
he was turned in fi ve times and
received a fi ne.
“Whether you call that
beholden to the state or what,”
he said, “that’s what some of us
have to deal with.”
He said he disagreed with
OSHA, but he supported state
legislators’ eff orts to limit
OSHA’s overreach.
“I have 10 employees that, if
they don’t work, they don’t eat,”
The Eagle/Steven Mitchell
John Day Mayor Ron Lundbom
addresses the crowd of about
200 who showed up to voice
concerns over COVID-19 man-
dates.
The Eagle/Steven Mitchell
Brenda Coley, left, addresses the crowd of about 200 people who
showed up to voice concerns about COVID-19 mandates May 12
as organizer Bill Newman listens.
he said. “A lot of businesses are
in that same position.”
A Grant County citizen Ath-
ena Moline screamed at Lund-
bom to “get off the stage” and
study his Constitution. She said
that OSHA had not collected
fi nes because they know they
would lose in court. Lundbom
thanked Moline and said he was
waiting for someone to tell him
his legal recourse.
Moline told Lunbom she
would make an appointment with
him to share the information she
had been studying for over a year.
Palmer’s speech
County Commissioner Sam
Palmer said that Grant County
had “fl attened the curve.” Since
the start of the pandemic, he
said the hospital reported four
COVID-19-related admissions
and no COVID-19 admissions
since March.
After the event, Blue Moun-
tain Hospital CEO Derek Daly
confi rmed those numbers were
accurate. He said a COVID-19
“admission” is when a patient
is admitted as an inpatient. Most
COVID-19 patients are evalu-
ated in the emergency room or
receive outpatient testing and go
home to recover and quarantine,
he said.
“If someone requires hospi-
tal care due to severe COVID-
19 symptoms, our physicians
and nurses evaluate the con-
dition of the patient and deter-
mine if they should be admit-
ted to BMH or transferred to a
COVID-19 unit at a larger facil-
ity,” Daly said. “If the patient is
deteriorating quickly or expected
to require longer-term hospital-
ization requiring intubation, they
would coordinate a transfer to an
available ICU in Bend or Boise.”
Daly said he estimated that
about 12 COVID-19 patients
have been transferred during the
course of the pandemic.
While one death is too many,
Palmer said, the county had only
seen fi ve deaths due to the virus
before the sixth death Thursday.
“I think this county did a rel-
atively well job at keeping that
down and keeping that curve
fl at,” he said.
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