STATE
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
A7
Charges possible in cattle stranding
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
IMNAHA — An investigation is
ongoing into possibly neglected cattle
— many of which had young calves
— in deep snows on U.S. Forest Ser-
vice land in the Upper Imnaha area,
Wallowa County Sheriff Joel Fish has
confi rmed.
Fish stated in an email on Dec. 31
that the investigation was started after
learning the magnitude of the situation
on Dec. 19.
“Wallowa County is moving toward
seizing the Dean Oregon Ranch cattle
for neglect, and we are investigating
possible criminal charges,” Fish said in
the email.
Fish said the Sheriff ’s Offi ce is
“assisting with the retrieval of the cat-
tle on the Forest Service grazing per-
mits on the Marr Flat C&H Allotment.
We have had deputies on snowmobiles
assisting since that date.”
There have been numerous volun-
teers helping in the rescue eff orts, as con-
fi rmed by County Commission Chair-
man Todd Nash and volunteers with the
Wallowa County Humane Society.
Social media alert
One of the fi rst widespread alerts
came in a Facebook post by Craig
Stockdale, who was one of the fi rst to
discover the cattle on the 200 Road
south of Salt Creek.
“I just came upon them snowmobil-
ing,” Stockdale said Jan. 1.
He said the post mobilized rescu-
ers — both those out fi nding the cattle
and those with facilities to care for the
rescued livestock — and he has since
taken it down.
Kathy Gisler Reynolds, a volunteer
with the Humane Society, shared a post
of the cattle Dec. 29. Photos posted on
Facebook showed a cow up to its neck
in snow and unable to move.
“I was alerted to it yesterday by the
ranchers who have been out there trying
to save them,” Reynolds said Dec. 30.
She listed several people who were
involved in rescuing and caring for the
cattle and their calves, calling some of
them “heroes.”
“Some were too weak to even
move,” she said of the cattle, adding
that although rescuers were able to
retrieve calves, a number of the adult
cows had to be euthanized.
Stockdale and Anna Butterfi eld,
who with her husband, Mark, ranches
Anna Butterfi eld/Contributed Photo
A snowmobiler rides alongside some cattle stranded in the Upper Imnaha area recently. Many of the cows were calving
and some had to be put down after being stuck in deep snow.
northeast of Joseph, confi rmed the cat-
tle are on the Bob Dean Oregon Ranch
managed by B.J. Warnock.
Dean lives in the Deep South and
Warnock was not at liberty to provide
contact information.
The ranch
Warnock issued a statement on the
situation by email Jan. 2.
“I am not aware of any plans or
attempts to seize any assets,” he said.
He also described the situation.
“Dean Oregon Ranches cows were
all purchased in Oregon and Washing-
ton and began arriving on Dean Ore-
gon Ranches property October of 2020
and continued arriving through July
of 2021. The cows were a mixture of
spring and fall calvers,” Warnock said.
“They were all acclimated to this cli-
mate, but not all acclimated to this spe-
cifi c terrain. Some do not know how to
navigate canyons, so they have wan-
dered in the wrong direction as we
searched for them and brought in other
groups. New cows are more diffi cult
to gather than cows that have run on
the same range for several consecutive
years and know the way home. These
cows are not calving in the snow; the
ranch’s fall calving season was October
through November. When we began
gathering in September, there were
1,613 mother cows on summer range.”
He acknowledged bovine casualties
in the recovery eff orts.
“Despite the eff orts of our crew and
the community, 10 cows have been
found unrecoverable,” he said, add-
ing that “1,548 Dean Oregon Ranches
mother cows were successfully gath-
ered by Dean Oregon Ranches crew
before the snow. After the snow, 34
mother cows have been gathered
through the joint eff orts of our crew and
the community. Of those, 26 were Dean
Oregon Ranches cattle; the others were
owned by neighboring ranches.”
Warnock expressed his gratitude
to fellow ranchers assisting in the
recovery.
“We truly appreciate the eff ort the
community has shown in this fi nal push
to gather the remaining cows,” he said.
“We plan to continue aerial searches
and hope to bring in the majority of the
remaining 29 mother cows.”
County involved
At an emergency meeting of the
Wallowa County Board of Commis-
sioners on an unrelated matter Dec. 30,
Nash — who is a rancher and president
of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association
— said information on the situation at
present was limited.
“The things we do know is that this
was a Forest Service permit for the
Upper Big Sheep Creek and the Upper
Imnaha,” Nash said after the meet-
ing. “It takes in a large area — 72,000
acres — known as the Marr Flat Graz-
ing Allotment. They had a viable per-
mit to go on sometime in the spring.
They were supposed to have all cat-
tle removed according to the Forest
Service permit. By the 15th of Octo-
ber, there were still cattle that remained
out there and are in very deep snow,
some of them have expired. There is
a rescue eff ort being made right now
to try and rescue as many as possible.
We’ve committed county resources to
it. There’ve been a number of people
who have volunteered or have contrib-
uted time. There’s been helicopters that
have fl own feed into some that were
extremely isolated and the rescue con-
tinues. Those are the basic facts that I
do know.”
Nash went on to specify the county
resources.
“The Road Department cleared
about 10 miles of road in a heavy snow-
fall area on the Upper Imnaha,” he said.
“They cleared about 90 trees out of the
road. Compounding the heavy snowfall
that came all at once, we had an event
where we had rain and heavy snowfall
afterword. There are trees across a lot
of the access roads that they’re trying
to get down right now that has exasper-
ated those eff orts to try to extricate the
cattle from their situation.”
He was unsure how many cattle
were involved, but was aware some had
young calves.
Rancher Casey Tippett said he
called the Forest Service in November
after hearing reports from hunters that
cattle were on land where they weren’t
supposed to be, but he never heard back
from the federal agency.
“Those cattle should’ve been taken
off that land a long time ago,” Tippett
said Dec. 30. “When they take strange
cattle to an allotment, when winter
hits they don’t know how to get out.
The people who know that country
should’ve been getting them out.”
Humane Society
Carol Vencill, president of the local
Humane Society, said she, too, was
unsure of the numbers, but said the
snow was 7 feet deep in some places.
“Adam Stein is really the hero in all
of this,” she said of the Joseph construc-
tion contractor. “It was Adam Stein who
got the ball rolling.”
She said he started gathering peo-
ple to help after viewing the cattle from
the air.
Warnock added his take on Stein’s
assistance.
“I contacted Adam Stein to fl y for
the ranch and fl ew with him to look
for cows multiple times,” Warnock
said. “I am very thankful we reached
out to Adam — he has been awesome
through all this and his expertise in the
snow and in the air has been an invalu-
able resource.”
Nash said various agencies have
been apprised of the situation, ready to
lend what aid they could. He said the
Wallowa County Sheriff ’s Offi ce and
the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest
are aware, as well as others.
“I’ve had some discussion with the
Oregon Department of Agriculture on
this situation,” he said. “They’re the
ones with the Brand Department a lot
of the (state laws) concerning the cur-
rent situation.”
Peter Fargo, public aff airs offi cer for
the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest
based in Baker City, said in an email
Dec. 31 that the county, the Sheriff ’s
Offi ce and volunteers not only had been
rescuing cattle, they “have been hauling
hay and water with snowmobiles, side-
by-sides and helicopters. The priority
of the operation is fi rst on everyone’s
safety and then saving as many cattle as
possible.”
He said the Forest Service instructed
the permittee and ranch manager to
remove all the cattle in October.
Fargo estimated there were 70 head
of cattle still on the allotment Dec. 21
and, as of Dec. 30, there were up to 25
animals still unaccounted for. Tom Birk-
maier, president of Wallowa County
Stockgrowers, said he has heard the
numbers are higher, but couldn’t say
exactly how many.
But mostly it’s people in Wallowa
County who are putting out the eff ort
to rescue the stranded cattle and calves.
“There’s a lot of people who are
quite concerned,” Nash said.
Birkmaier, who ranches on Crow
Creek where he and wife, Kelly, have
been caring for some of the rescued
calves, was emphatic in his concern for
the situation.
“Several factors created a near-per-
fect storm that led to an unfortunate
series of events impacting a group of
cattle in southern Wallowa County.
Apparent mismanagement, extreme
weather events and lactating cows with
young calves all played a part,”
The Carrie Young Memorial
would like to thank everyone who helped
make 2021 such an amazingly successful year.
To all that have donated to the Carrie Young Memorial in 2021, we
appreciate your generosity.
Another year with so much loss and uncertainty, but once again we
are Grant County Strong!
This year a total of $49,972.77 was raised to assist the elderly of
Grant County.
To the businesses, friends & family
within our area and beyond, we
thank you very much!
Our most sincere gratitude to all the
people that help make this such a
worthwhile cause.
From the bottom of our hearts –
THANK YOU!
In memory of Carrie Young
7/13/61 – 9/15/1993
Lucie Immoos, Christie Winegar
& Dolores Young
S277489-1