Wolf opponents, proponents face off in Portland

On the other side of the debate, conservation advocates referred to the most recent numbers released by the state — which showed population growth of wolves was stagnant at best — while arguing that wolves needed at least the same, if not greater, levels of protection they’ve enjoyed in the past.

“This is a very divisive issue,” said commission chair MIchael Finley, addressing the dozens of people who gathered in a conference room at the Embassy Suites Hotel near Portland International Airport. “Our job is to come together to protect these animals and to do so reasonably.”

As a backdrop, fish and wildlife officials said in February that the wolf population had stabilized and passed a threshold of three consecutive years with greater than seven breeding pairs. Officials decided to remove the animal from Oregon’s endangered species list in 2015, but the wolf remains under federal protections in Western Oregon.

There were at least 112 wolves counted in the state in 2016, but that represents an increase of only two over the previous year’s count. Last year’s annual wolf report documented seven wolf deaths in 2016.

One of the most-urgent requests from ranchers was to include language in the plan to give some local control to officials who could facilitate investigations after livestock is killed. Specifically, ranchers have asked the state to empower state police and county sheriff’s to make rulings on the cause of death.

Jill McClaren, of the Wallowa County Stockgrowers Association, said that one of her calves was discovered dead on her property earlier this month, but because it was a weekend, there were no investigators available to take on the case. She had to wait until the following Monday to drive the carcass into town herself, and by then, she said, evidence the kill had been perpetrated by a wolf had been washed away by rain.

The state eventually ruled the cause of death as “other.”

Rob Klavins, a farmer from Wallowa County and field coordinator for the advocacy group Oregon Wild, told the commission that local elected officials should not be the ones ruling on the cause of death in suspected depredation events.

“Local control sounds good,” he said. “But consequential decisions should not be subject to local politics and pressure.”

State officials documented 24 confirmed killings of livestock in 2016, a significant increase from the nine confirmed the year before. The state investigated 67 incidents in 10 counties where ranchers or livestock owners claimed a wolf killed their animal, but were only able to confirm the 24 incidents.

In the previous version of the plan, chronic depredation was defined as “two confirmed or one confirmed and three attempted depredations” in any given time period. The draft would change the definition to “three confirmed depredations or one confirmed and four probable depredations within a 12-month period.”

Ranchers rejected the proposed definition as untenable, saying there were fewer than four depredation events deemed “probably” in the entire state last year. Wolf advocates argued the opposite.

Also at issue was a provision in the draft that would allow the state to issue permits for hunters and trappers to kill wolves identified in chronic depredation events, an idea favored by ranchers.

Nick Cady, legal director for the conservation group Cascadia Wildlands, pushed back on the proposal, saying it would effectively incentivize the killing of wolves and could lead to innocent animals being killed.

“We oppose the use of public or private hunters,” he told the commission. “We can’t have a situation where a cash-strapped agency charges money to kill wolves. It creates an incentive.”

The commission didn’t take any action to change the plan on Friday, but did plan for another meeting to discuss the topics raised at their next meeting on July 8 in Salem.

A date for adoption of the final plan has not been set.