Bark or Bite (Oregon's 1994’s Measure 18 10 years later)

Medford Mail Tribune ^ | December 5, 2004 | MARK FREEMAN

[ApplegateRanch]

Cougars and bears are no longer hunted using hounds in Oregon, thanks to 1994’s Measure 18, but the sides disagree on the law’s success

[snip] A decade after Oregon voters told Blascka and other houndsmen to stop chasing cougars and bears with their dogs, the debate still rages whether Measure 18, which went into effect Dec. 8, 1994, has caused more harm than good for Oregon’s wildlife and people.

The measure’s chief backers contend that the ban did exactly what it was intended to do. It stopped the chasing and treeing of bears and cougars for sport and the use of bait piles to attract bears within shooting range.

[snip] "It was important to send a signal that wildlife policy decisions shouldn’t be made solely by the user groups," Pacelle says. "This was an important way to open up the process to non-hunters."

But wildlife managers, many hunters, residents in areas populated with livestock-killing cougars and even some animal-rights activists continue to find fault with the measure — all for different reasons.

[ApplegateRanch]

Sally Mackler, wildlife chairwoman for the Oregon Chapter of the Sierra Club, scoffs at Thiebes’ assertions.

Mackler says the measures in place can protect livestock, pets and people from cougars. She also believes owners need to keep their pets and livestock indoors at night.

Right, lady; round up those 500 head on the grazing allotment, and put them in the barn every night!

Ain't they brilliant???

[konaice]

BUT you forgot the important bit: The number of cougars killed for sport and for damage complaints has doubled since the measure passed. And the initiative helped galvanize Oregon’s disorganized hunting community, Fahy maintains.

"I don’t take glee in this, but somebody has to say it," Fahy says. "In my opinion, (HSUS) is a Wal-Mart type of animal-welfare organization coming in and making everything worse.

[ApplegateRanch]

BUT you forgot the important bit: The number of cougars killed for sport and for damage complaints has doubled since the measure passed.

Yes, BUT:

Over the past decade, the estimated cougar population has grown from about 3,200 animals to between 5,000 and 6,000, with hunter harvest and damage problems soaring right along with it.

Despite the increased kill-rate, the breeding population has ALSO nearly doubled, and may still be growing. As numbers go up, hunter success should also increase, and MAINTAIN the population at a desired level. Instead, kill rates have increased, and so has population, beyond desired management levels.

What also tends to get ignored in the arguments is that not only are encroaching people squeezing the wildlife into smaller & smaller habitat areas, and thus increasing the people/predator encounters, they are also doing the same to domestic livestock. This forces the livestock & predators into closer shared proximity, resulting in more losses.

[Eska]

You might have something there down in lower 48, and hunters do play their part too but;;; Once predator numbers explode up here in alaska; moose & caribou suffer terribly. Calf survival drops to like 15% and you end up with a bunch of 13 year old barren cows. Now they say each wolf takes 6-12 moose each year. In our community of 130 people only 6 got a moose last fall; everyone use to. Without good game management, its boom and bust (the real balance of nature). The land stagnates and only produces 10% of what it can; and man might as well quit hunting.

Up here, moose and bear don't even want to be around people for the most part; they live up at higher elevations only winter down low. I've had wolves look my dogteam over and if you dry fish; you'll have bear there pretty quick. Guess I'd rather control numbers for highest production than have hungry country for everything.

It could be worse though. I keep an old plott as a guard dog and I'd hate to hunt this rugged country up here with no roads for hundreds of miles.

[B Knotts]

Who's encroaching on habitat? Nobody can build anything outside urban growth boundaries.

The only encroaching is by coyotes and cougars on populated areas.

Unfortunately, it's gonna take a number of suburban encounters where someone dies before this idiotic policy is finally reversed.

[ApplegateRanch]

Nobody can build anything outside urban growth boundaries.

That is flat misinformation.

I lived 15 miles outside the nearest urban growth boundray, in a house we built on bare ground we bought in 1987, in Jackson County. In the 4 mile stretch of "our" road between us & the main road, over an eight year period, when I began noticing and counting, 24 new residences were built. More were planned or under construction. Many more were built further up than we were, as well as closer to town. The same was happening on all the other nearby rural roads in all the local watersheds. Several large ranches were broken up into small acreages. Since we left last year, bare dirt has still been selling well for new dwellings, according to our Realtor friends.

As for "urban grown boundaries", they were routinely moved outwards several times in that time frame, to accomodate larger developments.

What the system says, what it implies, and what it does are three very different things.

As for the cats, bears, and coyotes...and the 'coming soon' wolves, the law is a disaster to people and animals, wild and domestic alike. Our ancestors suppressed competing predators for a reason.

Thank you Portland & Salem voters for setting rural policy you didn't have to live with.