Without passage of a bill to ratify the Oregon Fish and Wildlife’s decision to delist grey wolves as an endangered species, Sen. Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day, believes the state’s management and conservation plan would have been in peril.
Ferrioli’s District 30, Oregon’s largest, includes many large cattle and sheep production operations, and covers more than 36,000 square miles.
“If it weren’t for the cooperation of ranchers, you wouldn’t have wolf recovery in Oregon,” he said. “It’s the ranchers who have to live with wolves, not the environmentalists.”
House Bill 4040 ratified ODFW’s decision in November to delist wolves in Eastern Oregon, where the state has jurisdiction.
On the western side, wolves are still federally listed and managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. A “no kill” order is in place.
The legislature took action to thwart a lawsuit by several conservation groups, who want wolf numbers much higher before delisting takes place.
Conservationists and some Democratic legislators are now calling on Gov. Kate Brown to veto HB4040.
The management plan allowed wildlife officials to delist wolves when there had been a population of four breeding wolf pairs for three consecutive years, an objective met in January 2015.
“The decision to delist was science-based, peer-reviewed and is supported widely by rural Oregonians,” said Ferrioli.
“It represents the culmination of more than a decade of collaboration between private landowners, cattle ranchers, county elected officials, state agencies and several government agencies with full participation and support by environmental groups and wolf reintroduction advocates.”
Ferrioli said the Oregon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan was adopted in 2005 with the “express agreement that when wolf populations reached a level judged to be sustainable, the animal would be delisted, which would enable a full range of management options.”
The change in status drops the threshold for state officials to consider hunting a problem pack from four livestock kills in six months to two in any timeframe.
Under phase one of the plan, ranchers were allowed to shoot wolves only if the predators were caught biting, wounding or killing livestock. Phase two allows livestock owners to shoot wolves they find chasing animals on their property.
“Landowners and cattle producers voluntarily participated in wolf management actions that are costly and difficult, knowing that would include uncompensated losses through predation, lower weight gain and other negative consequences of attacks,” said Ferrioli. “They did that because they were assured in the future that regulations would become more flexible.”
If the state didn’t follow through on delisting, as agreed, Ferrioli said that could be the end of voluntary participation by landowners in current and future conservation efforts.
He believes that will also happen if Brown vetoes the bill to back up that decision.
“Those voluntary efforts are critical to the success of recovery for species like the sage grouse in five Eastern Oregon counties and the Green Spotted Frog in Central Oregon,” he said.
“HB4040 isn’t even precedent-setting,” said Ferrioli. “The Legislature in 2005 voted unanimously to support a delisting decision for the Aleutian Canada Goose, but it stands as a symbol for the success or failure of partnerships.”
The wolf bill itself became endangered, he said, when Portland legislators refused to back it.
“It wasn’t good policy but we had to leverage to get that bill passed,” he said of a Republican agreement to give up opposition on several bills and allow other contested measures to go through.
At the end of the day, Ferrioli said HB4040 was approved due to the support of these Democrats: Sen. President Peter Courtney of Salem; Alan Bates of Medford; Lee Beyer of Springfield; Chris Edwards of Eugene; Betsy Johnson of Scappoose; and Arnie Roblan of Coos Bay.
“I think they understood that this was important to rural Oregon,” said Ferrioli.
“It’s kind of sad that we couldn’t get support from the Portland area.”
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