By Josh Laughlin
Published: (Wednesday, Nov 9, 2011)
Gray wolf recovery in Oregon has
hit a rocky road recently, particularly with regard to the Imnaha Pack,
Oregon’s first in more than 60 years. Government killing of wolves,
driven by a widely professed hatred for the animals by extreme members
in the livestock industry, continues to undermine the pack’s viability.
One can’t help but wonder: Are we heading
back to the bad old days of wolf removal, or will Oregon’s leadership,
including Gov. John Kitzhaber, show restraint as wolves begin to regain a
toehold in our state?
The story of wolves in Oregon was the same
across much of the Lower 48: The species was exterminated systematically
through a government-sponsored campaign of trapping, poisoning and
shooting. The last wolf in Oregon was handed over to authorities for
bounty in 1947.
From the first colonies on the Eastern
Seaboard through the Great Plains to the Wild West, America’s great
landscapes were sanitized of the wolf, and the backcountry was silenced.
In a remarkable wildlife success story
comparable to the bald eagle’s, wolves have begun to make a comeback in
the West after being reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park and
central Idaho in the mid-1990s. As their population in the Rockies
rebounded, wolves began to disperse west into neighboring states.
Just recently, state officials confirmed
Oregon’s fourth wolf pack near Hells Canyon, and for the first time
since the last wolf bounty was paid, a gray wolf has been confirmed in
the Oregon Cascades. While many Oregonians are excited by the news, the
fate of two Imnaha Pack members hangs in the balance.
On Oct. 5, Cascadia Wildlands, the Center
for Biological Diversity and Oregon Wild filed a legal complaint and
were immediately granted an emergency stay that temporarily halted the
execution of two more of the pack’s four remaining members — the male
pack leader and a yearling. These wolves, whose territory lies east of
Joseph, allegedly were involved in the Sept. 22 death of a calf. As
winter approaches, reducing the pack to a young pup and its mother
likely would render Oregon’s first pack not viable.
The Imnaha Pack has been under fire in the
past. Extremists in the ranching industry have been calling for the
pack’s elimination, and the state killed two of its members just this
May after a series of livestock losses. In 2010, the same conservation
coalition halted efforts to kill two other pack members through a legal
challenge.
A young Imnaha Pack member also died this
spring shortly after it was fitted with a radio collar, further
whittling the pack’s numbers. It has been tough going for the Imnaha
Pack since it first established itself in Wallowa County in 2008.
Cascadia Wildlands recognizes that lethal
control of gray wolves under extreme circumstances may be the price of
recovery, but only when wolf numbers have begun to stabilize. With
approximately 23 confirmed wolves in Oregon today compared to 1.3
million cattle, we believe the state’s heavy-handed approach with the
Imnaha Pack is unwarranted this early in the recovery process.
Moreover, the state Legislature recently
passed a compensation package that reimburses livestock producers who
lose livestock to wolves. With so few wolves in Oregon, is it fair to
get compensated and then kill wolves on top of that?
The state of Oregon has a legal mandate to
help wolves recover, not cave in to political pressure from an extreme
sector of the livestock industry. That same sector also was responsible
for bringing a flurry of bills to the Legislature last session to weaken
the compromise Oregon Wolf Plan and make it easier to kill Oregon’s
wolves. A flood of public opposition helped defeat the bills.
Our fear is that what is happening to the
Mexican gray wolf in the Southwest may happen here in Oregon. After
federal reintroduction in 1998, the fledgling population plateaued and,
at the end of 2010, the multi-state recovery area registered a scant 50
animals. Heavy-handed management, poaching, an overly restricted
recovery area and other threats have contributed to the stagnation. The
effort recently was deemed “at risk of failure” by the federal agency
overseeing the recovery.
Oregon can do better. Our Oregon wolves
deserve better. There is room for a robust wolf population in Oregon, a
state that values native wildlife and healthy landscapes. We call on
Oregon’s leadership to hang up the guns and traps, refocus on nonlethal
and conflict-reduction efforts, and proceed with its critically
important job of helping wolves recover in Oregon.
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