Posted on 04/15/2009 5:56:21 PM PDT by crazyhorse691
Ranching - If confirmed, the attacks east of Baker City will be the first in years
LA GRANDE -- A gray wolf may have killed 19 lambs on an eastern Oregon ranch south of the Eagle Cap Wilderness in separate attacks April 9 and 12, Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department officials said Tuesday.
Seventeen lambs died and two were injured in the first attack on the ranch, which belongs to Curt Jacobs and is in the Keating Valley east of Baker City, said Michelle Dennehy, Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman. Two died in the second attack.
If confirmed, the attacks will mark the first documented loss of livestock to a wolf since the animals returned to Oregon in 1999.
"We can't confirm it is a wolf yet," Dennehy said. "It is not a cougar or a coyote." The tracks were comparatively small "but within the range of what could be a wolf." A robust male gray wolf can weigh 100 pounds, and females often are in the 60-pound range, said Phil Carroll, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Portland.
State and federal biologists are investigating "and figuring out how to keep it from happening again," Dennehy said.
If the killer is a wolf, it may be trapped, fitted with a radio-collar and released nearby, Carroll said. Then if it approaches Jacobs' sheep again, the collar would trigger a noisemaker to scare the animal off. If that doesn't work, federal biologists have authority to kill it, he said.
Wolves are listed as endangered under state and federal laws. Killing federally protected animals is punishable by a fine of up to $100,000 and a year in jail. Gray wolves are scheduled to be taken off the federal list May 4 but will continue as an endangered species in Oregon, Dennehy said.
Under the state's Wolf Management Plan, enacted in 2005, farmers and ranchers are permitted to "haze" and drive off wolves without injuring them if they're seen around livestock, she said.
Wolves have been migrating into Oregon from Idaho and elsewhere for about a decade, Carroll said. "We've gone this long with wolves but no depredations," he said. "That's pretty good, so far."
Sean Stevens of Oregon Wild, an environmental group, said wolves "are good for the ecosystem" and it's up to humans to find a balance between the frontier-era policy of trying to eradicate them and living in concert with them.
Until last year, the only gray wolves reported in Oregon were individuals that had wandered in from Idaho. That changed in January 2008, when biologists discovered a small pack in Oregon's northeast corner.
Richard Cockle: 541-963-8890; rcockle@oregonwireless.net
I am also giving the link to the ecofreaks response to the wolf depradation;http://www.oregonwild.org/about/press-room/press-releases/biologists-investigate-possible-wolf-encounter
My husband thought he saw one crossing the highway yesterday. I said no way, not in Eastern Oregon. Read this headline to him and he said “Told you so”!
Well then, they owe this rancher upwards of $2000.
The anti-hunting and animal rights nutjobs say that wolves kill only the sick and weak and kill only to eat so this couldn’t have been wolves. /sarc
I say let Sean Stevens live in concert with them. Keep them in his livingroom and leave the rest of us alone. Oh, and make him stay in the room with them until thay have . . .uh. . . bonded
They just say that they’ll pay for the depradation losses during hearings to get it by the middle of the road people but when there are deaths they want proof beyond reason.
There are wolves in Idaho? Who knew? I thought they were just a Yellowstone attraction. :-)
The 3 S’s that’s how you deal with them. With the third S being the most important.
They kill just for the fun of it.
The sad news is that they each have a full-time contingent of eco-freak government employees to track them and make sure they come to no harm.
I was thinking something similar: take the lamb carcasses and drop them on that stupid whore Ashley Judd’s doorstep.
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