ENTERPRISE, Ore. — As legislative battles over how to allocate state money heat up, so does the old dispute between livestock producers and proponents of wolves.

The issue surfaced again in a state House committee considering two bills that would compensate ranchers for losses to predators.

Those bills had hearings Thursday, March 23, before the House Ag and Natural Resources Committee, where proponents and opponents of House Bill  2631 and House Bill 2633 had their say. The big difference appears to be a multiplier that has been added to the bills for compensation to ranchers for confirmed livestock kills by wolves.

HB 2631 — as originally written — would compensate ranchers at seven times the market value of a cow, while HB 2633 only compensates at twice the market value. John Williams, co-chairman of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association’s Wolf Committee for Eastern Oregon, said ranchers now receive just the market value of a lost cow that’s a confirmed or probable wolf kill.

Both bills eliminate compensation for missing livestock, which was a contentious element between ranchers and environmentalists.

“We don’t know what the bill will be,” Williams said Thursday, March 30. “Environmentalists claim we’re getting rich on that (the seven-to-one multiplier). The reality is we’re not getting our bills paid at seven-to-one. We’re just getting reimbursed for some of our losses.”

Opponents of the seven-to-one multiplier, such as Zoe Hanley, wildlife ecologist with Defenders of Wildlife, argue that it would provide “a disincentive to producers to protect livestock using nonlethal tools and strategies which we strongly promote.”

Another opponent of the seven-to-one compensation rate cited a lack of studies and data to show that the wolf compensation fund has led to increased social tolerance of wolves.

“What’s really needed are explicit plans and timelines for program reform and surveys to assess the effectiveness of the fund,” said Amaroq Weiss of the Center for Biological Diversity.

Family or livestock?

Wallowa County rancher Tom Birkmaier emphasized to the committee his efforts to protect his livestock while using nonlethal means to chase off wolves.

“I’m exhausted,” he said after a six-hour drive from his ranch to Salem. “I’ve been calving my cows working 20-hour days. … I’m very passionate about this. I believe in very strong animal husbandry practices; I care immensely for my cattle and for my family. Unfortunately, with the impact that I’ve felt from the wolves, I’ve felt that I’ve had to put my cattle ahead of my family, and that’s been tough.”

Birkmaier said he’s been keeping track of the extra time he’s had to put in trying to discourage wolf attacks.

“Last year, the Chesnimnus Pack began to attack my cattle. … I figured I could apply the hard work I instill into the calving season and protect them using all the nonlethal methods that the ODFW (Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife) required of me and then some,” he said. “I’ve documented 1,037 hours — and that is documented, I’ve basically kept a diary.

“The Chesnimnus Pack is a very desensitized pack to humans. The alpha male and female in that pack are 5-6 years old (and) produce seven to nine pups a year with almost 100% survival. They are really good killers and they are functional at it,” he said.

But his efforts at nonlethal deterrents have only met with limited success.

“In my 1,037 hours I’ve used seven different nonlethal methods consistently,” Birkmaier said. “I’ve lost six calves and this fall I was missing 20. So, six of those calves were confirmed wolf. I was sleeping in my pickup, sleeping on the ground, walking the pastures at night, making as much noise as I possibly could and witnessing my cows being attacked and having erratic behavior.”

It’s about more than just financial compensation, the rancher said.

“Trust me, it’s not all about the money,” Birkmaier said, on the verge of tears. “When you see a cow come back to the blood spot where her calf was killed and she lets her milk down and it runs down on the ground, it absolutely breaks my heart. It isn’t all about science and profits. … The social part to me is devastating. It affects myself, my family and emotionally exhausts me.”

Hanley of Defenders of Wildlife backed Birkmaier’s assertion that he had attempted nonlethal deterrents.

“Although I have an opposite opinion to Tom Birkmaier, I have valued working with him in the past and Defenders was able to provide him with funds in 2020 and I can vouch to the fact of his documenting.”

A different take

But Todd Nash, a Wallowa County commissioner and president of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, had a different take on Defenders of Wildlife in his committee testimony.

“I’ve been impacted by wolves and I think I received the first compensation check in the state of Oregon a year before it was established in statute, and that came from the Defenders of Wildlife,” the longtime Wallowa County rancher said. “A year later, they (Defenders of Wildlife) changed their minds but they went with us to the Legislature to start that compensation program in 2011.”

At that time, Nash said, “We were told we have to have a conservation group go with us to get this through. One by one, the conservation groups walked away from the table. When Oregon Wild walked away, (they) said, as an organization, we don’t agree to giving ranchers money for any reason. We’re out.”

Nash finds this difference at the core of the dispute.

“That is at the heart of this diabolical opposition that builds social tolerance,” he said.

“We didn’t want wolves here to begin with,” Nash said. “We have them here now, we’re dealing with them. Three-quarters of the state is under federal listing. … There’s no way to manage a wolf except compensation and nonlethal.”

Wolves in Oregon 

According to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, wolves currently in Oregon migrated naturally into the state or were born here. Wolves were captured in Canada and released in Central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s.

That brought them into conflict with the ranchers who raised livestock the predators found tasty. The state’s Endangered Species Act, enacted in 1987, required protection of the wolves. The Wolf Conservation and Management Plan is an attempt to reduce wolf-livestock conflicts and saw its most recent update adopted by the Fish and Wildlife Commission in June 2019.

“But the program has never been adequately funded to address the missing component,” Nash said to the committee. “At that time during those negotiations, there wasn’t a dispute between Defenders of Wildlife and Oregon Cattlemen’s Association on that. The only dispute was how much we’re going to give to nonlethal and it’s around 30%. We agreed to that and since then, they have given over 70% to nonlethal. … We’ve done our part. This needs to be fully funded. We can agree on a multiplier and give up missing livestock, but it has to be a substantial multiplier in order to do that.”

Williams said the bills now go to the Joint Ways and Means Committee, but it may not be known until near the end of the legislative session how it will play out.