A8
STATE
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, February 2, 2022
Wolves
kill calf
near
Keating
KEATING — Wolves
killed a 500-pound, year-
old calf near Keating late
Monday, Jan. 24, the Ore-
gon Department of Fish
and Wildlife confi rmed
after an investigation the
following day.
A rancher found the
dead calf on the morning
of Tuesday, Jan. 25, on a
25-acre private pasture near
Tucker Creek, according to
ODFW.
Tucker Creek fl ows
into the Powder River
near Keating School, at
the intersection of Keat-
ing Cutoff Road, Keating
Grange Road and Miles
Bridge Road.
Brian
Ratliff ,
dis-
trict wildlife biologist at
ODFW’s Baker City offi ce,
said on Friday morning,
Jan. 28, that the rancher
who owns the calf has done
“everything right” to avoid
attracting wolves to the
property, and has also been
instrumental in the past in
encouraging other ranch-
ers to bury carcasses and
take other steps to thwart
wolves.
Ratliff said that in the
most recent confi rmed wolf
attack in the Keating Valley
— a herding dog killed on a
ranch on Friday, Jan. 14 —
six unburied cow carcasses
attracted wolves.
Although the area where
the calf was killed is within
the known range of the
Keating Pack, none of the
four wolves from the pack
fi tted with tracking collars
had been in the area the
night the calf was killed.
Ratliff said he has fl own
over the area in a helicop-
ter three times this week,
most recently on Thursday,
Jan. 27, but didn’t see any
wolves on those fl ights.
He said it’s possible that
uncollared wolves from
the Keating pack killed the
calf.
It’s also possible that
wolves that aren’t part of
any pack have moved into
the area and have not been
identifi ed.
“We don’t know at this
point,” Ratliff said.
He said late January and
early February is a com-
mon time for young adult
wolves to disperse from
packs.
The Keating pack con-
sists of at least 10 wolves.
With calving season
underway on some ranches
and starting soon on others,
Ratliff said he understands
the anxiety resulting from
the two recent wolf attacks
in Keating Valley.
“Everybody’s really on
high alert because calving
season is just starting,” he
said.
Ratliff said ranchers in
the Keating area have set
up a text message group
that allows them to spread
information — such as the
attack on the calf this week
— rapidly.
“It’s a good way to
quckly tell a bunch of peo-
ple, your neighbors,” Rat-
liff said.
Peter Nilsson/Contributed Photo
Elk gather in this undated photo gather at Peter Nilsson’s farm outside La Grande. He says he loves watching the bald eagles and
moose that show up on his farm by the river. And he thinks elk are cool, too. But not when an entire herd parties all winter at his
spread, eating his hay.
Gangs of elk feast on hay
Drought, heavy
snows drive hungry
animals into farm
country
By ANNA KING
Northwest Public Broadcasting
LA GRANDE — Anthony
Leggett’s farm is nestled in
the foothills outside Anthony
Lakes in Eastern Oregon.
He grows pasture grass
and beardless barley and puts
up big stacks of hay to earn
extra money for his young
family. Leggett’s farm costs
include equipment, chemi-
cals, fencing and fertilizers.
But hay makes money.
“Your hay is your pay-
check,” Leggett said. “That’s
how you pay your bills,
that’s how you support your
family. And they just take it.
You know, they’re animals
— that’s what they do.”
He said it’s a frustrating
situation and he does his best
to safely haze the animals.
Across the West, wide-
spread drought has left elk,
deer and even wild turkeys
hungry and in poor condition
— even a bit desperate.
Elk are even attacking
farmers’ haystacks in Wash-
ington and Oregon. Record
snow across much of the
Northwest’s mountains has
driven animals down to the
lowlands — in gangs. And
climate scientists say things
may only get worse in the
future.
Depredation report
The carcass of the calf
found on Tuesday, Jan.
25, was mostly intact but
the organs and most of
the hide and muscle tis-
sue from the calf’s hind-
quarters had been eaten,
according to the ODFW
report.
ODFW biologists who
examined the carcass said
the calf had died the pre-
ceding night.
They found a struggle
scene in the snow about
20 yards in diameter, with
fresh calf and wolf tracks,
and blood.
Biologists shaved and
skinned the carcass. They
found multiple premor-
tem tooth scrapes on the
remaining hide on the left
rear leg above the hock, as
well as premortem tooth
scrapes on the calf’s throat
and back.
The size and location of
the tooth scrapes are con-
sistent with wolf attacks
on calves, the biologists
concluded.
Hay prices are up
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upped the stakes — hay
prices are up across the West.
“This summer was very
hot and dry. And alfalfa and
grass hay is at a premium
right now,” McCanna said.
Floods and fi res
Meade Krosby is a senior
scientist at the University
of Washington’s Climate
Impacts Group in Seattle.
“So one of the primary
ways that wildlife respond to
changing climate is by mov-
ing,” Krosby said. “They
shift their ranges — they
want to track the change in
climate as it happens.”
She said now, more than
ever before, animals will
need to move quickly. Cli-
mate-induced fl oods and fi res
in the Northwest are dramati-
cally pushing animals around
on the landscape. She said
wildlife will need safe corri-
dors to run for it.
“They have to move so
fast, but they have all this
stuff in the way,” Krosby
said. “They have roads and
highways in the way, they
have cities in the way, agri-
cultural areas. And all of
these form these barriers to
wildlife getting to where
they need to go to shift their
ranges to adapt to climate
change.”
Starving with a belly
full of hay
Making things worse, elk
can starve on hay.
Elk have four-chambered
guts that change their bac-
teria with the season and
what’s available to eat. In the
spring and summer, bacte-
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lot of his winter teaching hay
growers and ranchers how
to build elk-proof electric
fencing.
“The other big thing we
have going on, that we have
staff kind of running frantic
on, is we have a lot of elk
damage,” McCanna said on a
recent wildlife management
Zoom. “Elk getting into hay-
stacks is one of the big ones.”
McCanna is an expert on
resolving wildlife confl icts
with humans for the Wash-
ington Department of Fish
and Wildlife. He teaches
farmers how to set up auto-
matic propane cannons to
haze them with noise. But
elk are smart, and it doesn’t
always work.
This year, drought has
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Elk can undercut a haystack by eating at their neck height, de-
stabilizing the bales. Many commercial bales can weigh more
than a ton each. Sometimes those destabilized bales can fall on
the animals and kill them.
S279215-1
139101
By JAYSON JACOBY
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ria colonies adjust to digest
green shoots and high-pro-
tein feed. But in the fall and
winter, gut bacteria are essen-
tially programmed to eat big
quantities of dried twigs and
grasses with a lower energy
content.
“The bug is clostridium
perfringens,” Colin Gillin
explained. He’s the state vet
for the Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife.
“It’s a bacteria that all
ruminants carry in their guts;
it’s just you don’t want that
clostridium to get out of
control,” Gillin said. “And
it’s when you throw corn
in there, it starts to have a
party.”
In this case, the corn is
hay.
The bacteria break down
the walls of the stomach
and intestines, so an elk can
starve to death with a belly
full of alfalfa.
‘Elk curtains’
At the Northwest Hay
Expo in Kennewick, mostly
men, mostly unmasked,
roam around the great hall,
slapping hands and checking
out the latest in twine, balers
and tarping technology. Pam-
phlets, ball caps and squishy
stress-balls shaped like little
tractors litter vendor’s tables.
A vendor motions to a
passing farmer, “Hiya, how
you? Enjoying your day so
far?”
Clint Vieu is from Walla
Walla. He’s with a major tar-
ping services company called
ITC Services out of Moses
Lake. He said one solution
for growers is to install “elk
curtains” that are tarps cov-
ering the sides of big stacks.
Left unprotected, Vieu said,
“Stacks have fallen on elk
‘cause they’ll eat into it so
much that it will actually
destabilize the stack and it
will collapse and fall in on
the animals.”
‘It’s life’
Every year, elk bust up
Anthony Leggett’s fences to
get to his hay and crops. And
every year, he fi xes them
again.
“You know, if I chase
them off my property, they
just go to the neighbor’s
property and get into their
haystack,” Leggett said.
Still, Leggett has made
his peace with the elk.
“We just happen to live
in a spot where there’s a trail
that they come down on,” he
said. “For us, it’s life.”