Posted: Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Wolves as a whole gain a little more protection while livestock
producers gain a degree of certainty that chronic depredators will be
killed under Oregon's revised wolf management plan, now fully in gear
with Gov. John Kitzhaber's signature on required legislation.
On July 19, Kitzhaber signed HB 3452, a measure championed by the local area's Rep. Bob Jenson (R-Pendleton) and Sen. Bill Hansell (R-Athena). In a related move a couple of weeks earlier, the state's Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted a new, permanent Oregon Administrative Rule for wolf management to replace a temporary rule wildlife managers had been using while practices in the field were under court challenge.
In fall of 2011, Oregon Wild and Cascadia
Wildlands led a coaliton of conservation groups that filed suit against
the State of Oregon over its lethal control practices for gray wolves.
In conjunction with the suit, the groups obtained a court injunction
halting the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife from killing wolves
while the case remained unresolved.
In May 2013, conservationists, the state, and the Oregon Cattlemen's Association reached a settlement agreement ending the year-and-a-half-old suit. The new management rule and language inserted into HB 3452 were both part of the agreement's implementation.
All of this stuff goes back to that settlement,” said Rod Childers, who chairs the cattlemen's association's wolf committee.
Under the new rule, state wildlife officials must observe a higher threshold for declaring a wolf eligible for lethal take. ODFW must confirm four qualifying incidents within a six-month time frame. Previously, the requirement was two qualifying incidents in no specified time frame.
Similarly, ODFW also faces a new 45-day limit for carrying out any lethal take order. The orders had no expiration previously.
Additionally, the new rule tightens requirements for having non-lethal control measures in place before counting any attacks on livestock as qualifying incidents.
Ranchers, on the other hand, now have greater latitude for acting against wolves that have been attacking or harassing their livestock. A key provision of HB 3452 allows stock owners to kill wolves without a state permit, but only under circumstances that are narrowly defined.
They got the ability on their own discretion to shoot a wolf that they reasonably suspect of harassing or attacking their livestock, … but if they do, their action has to stand an investigation,” said Wally Sykes, a member of Wallowa County's wolf compensation committee and a member of Oregon Wild. “From the conservationists' standpoint, this is a major (compromise), … because we're relying on the honesty of the ranchers.” He added that he believes there has lately evolved “a new element of trust between conservationists and livestock operators.”
As all pieces of the new agreement were coming into effect, Childers said parties understood that the Imnaha pack, responsible for all but a few of Oregon's confirmed wolf attacks on livestock, was currently at the three-strikes mark of the four qualifying incidents required before a pack could be subjected to lethal measures. “If there's one more depredation, which would make four,... then they can lethally take wolves out of the Imnaha pack,” Childers said on July 17, referring to ODFW.
Russ Morgan, ODFW wolf coordinator, said lethal control's goal is “to stop depredation. It's not like a sentence, if you will.” He later added: “Lethal control is not retribution or it's not population control.”
And however much ODFW would prefer to identify individual wolves that kill livestock, that's apparently not a limitation on ODFW's ability to take wolves, once a pack gets to four strikes. “If lethal control should become necessary for that pack, we would try to use every bit of information that we have to target the wolves that are depredating,” Morgan said. However, he added, “It's not a requirement of the rule to have identified a culprit or a depredating wolf... In some cases, we do know, and when that happens, it's very helpful... Sometimes we know which members of the pack it's not.”
In addition to other changes it introduces, the revised wolf plan calls upon ODFW to designate boundaries for an “Area of Depredating Wolves” within 14 working days of a group of wolves' first confirmed livestock kill. Concurrently, the agency will prepare an “area-specific wolf-livestock conflict deterrence plan” in coordination with landowners, livestock producers and other affected parties. This, and other information about wolf management will be posted on ODFW's website, which will see increased use in this regard, in line with the settlement agreement.
source
On July 19, Kitzhaber signed HB 3452, a measure championed by the local area's Rep. Bob Jenson (R-Pendleton) and Sen. Bill Hansell (R-Athena). In a related move a couple of weeks earlier, the state's Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted a new, permanent Oregon Administrative Rule for wolf management to replace a temporary rule wildlife managers had been using while practices in the field were under court challenge.
In May 2013, conservationists, the state, and the Oregon Cattlemen's Association reached a settlement agreement ending the year-and-a-half-old suit. The new management rule and language inserted into HB 3452 were both part of the agreement's implementation.
All of this stuff goes back to that settlement,” said Rod Childers, who chairs the cattlemen's association's wolf committee.
Under the new rule, state wildlife officials must observe a higher threshold for declaring a wolf eligible for lethal take. ODFW must confirm four qualifying incidents within a six-month time frame. Previously, the requirement was two qualifying incidents in no specified time frame.
Similarly, ODFW also faces a new 45-day limit for carrying out any lethal take order. The orders had no expiration previously.
Additionally, the new rule tightens requirements for having non-lethal control measures in place before counting any attacks on livestock as qualifying incidents.
Ranchers, on the other hand, now have greater latitude for acting against wolves that have been attacking or harassing their livestock. A key provision of HB 3452 allows stock owners to kill wolves without a state permit, but only under circumstances that are narrowly defined.
They got the ability on their own discretion to shoot a wolf that they reasonably suspect of harassing or attacking their livestock, … but if they do, their action has to stand an investigation,” said Wally Sykes, a member of Wallowa County's wolf compensation committee and a member of Oregon Wild. “From the conservationists' standpoint, this is a major (compromise), … because we're relying on the honesty of the ranchers.” He added that he believes there has lately evolved “a new element of trust between conservationists and livestock operators.”
As all pieces of the new agreement were coming into effect, Childers said parties understood that the Imnaha pack, responsible for all but a few of Oregon's confirmed wolf attacks on livestock, was currently at the three-strikes mark of the four qualifying incidents required before a pack could be subjected to lethal measures. “If there's one more depredation, which would make four,... then they can lethally take wolves out of the Imnaha pack,” Childers said on July 17, referring to ODFW.
Russ Morgan, ODFW wolf coordinator, said lethal control's goal is “to stop depredation. It's not like a sentence, if you will.” He later added: “Lethal control is not retribution or it's not population control.”
And however much ODFW would prefer to identify individual wolves that kill livestock, that's apparently not a limitation on ODFW's ability to take wolves, once a pack gets to four strikes. “If lethal control should become necessary for that pack, we would try to use every bit of information that we have to target the wolves that are depredating,” Morgan said. However, he added, “It's not a requirement of the rule to have identified a culprit or a depredating wolf... In some cases, we do know, and when that happens, it's very helpful... Sometimes we know which members of the pack it's not.”
In addition to other changes it introduces, the revised wolf plan calls upon ODFW to designate boundaries for an “Area of Depredating Wolves” within 14 working days of a group of wolves' first confirmed livestock kill. Concurrently, the agency will prepare an “area-specific wolf-livestock conflict deterrence plan” in coordination with landowners, livestock producers and other affected parties. This, and other information about wolf management will be posted on ODFW's website, which will see increased use in this regard, in line with the settlement agreement.
source
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