BAKER CITY, Ore. — A Baker County committee has awarded $15,115 to three ranchers to compensate them for expenses they incurred last year trying to protect their cattle from wolves.

The county’s Wolf Depredation Compensation Committee had its annual meeting at the courthouse on Jan. 12.

The committee reviews requests from ranchers for compensation for cattle killed or injured by wolves, and for their efforts to avoid wolf attacks. That generally involves hiring a range rider to patrol areas where cattle graze.

On Thursday the committee approved these awards from the county’s prevention budget:

• Barry DelCurto, Halfway, $7,765.

• Stan Gulick, Halfway, $4,500.

• Warnock Ranches, $2,850. The ranch is based in Maupin, south of The Dalles, but runs cattle in Baker County.

The committee also agreed to apply to the state for compensation for two ranchers who had livestock killed or injured — $1,800 for Earl Andersen, who had a heifer killed, and Carlton Andersen, who had a calf injured.

Both are from Ontario and own cattle that graze in Baker County.

The committee, in addition to applying for $2,800 for those two ranchers, will also ask the state for $60,000 for future requests for range riders and other prevention tactics.

Update from ODFW

The committee also heard from Justin Primus, a biologist at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Baker City office, who gave an update on the wolf packs around Baker County.

Primus said the female wolf from the Cornucopia pack in eastern Baker County has a tracking collar. The breeding female from the Keating pack, which has a territory east of Baker City, needs to be trapped and fitted with a new collar.

There are five wolves in the Lookout Mountain area, although both the breeding male and female from that pack were killed in 2023.

Primus said ODFW has not counted pups born in 2022, due to bad weather interfering with flights. He told the committee he believes the Cornucopia pack did not produce pups in 2022, but that the Keating pack did.

Carcass disposal

Morgan Solomon, coordinator for the Baker Sage Grouse Local Implementation Team, told the committee about a potential partnership involving the county that is intended to help ranchers dispose of dead cattle so the carcasses don’t attract wolves and other predators.

“The (team) right now is currently working on creating a carcass disposal program and we have been working towards partnering with Baker Sanitary Station to construct the carcass disposal site at the landfill south of town,” Solomon said. “Currently our idea is — and Baker Sanitary said they would take over these duties — is to have some sort of carcass pick up/drop off program for private landowners that would be completely free to the private land owner.”

Solomon said the team is interested in having the county potentially use money from its nonlethal mitigation budget to help pay Baker Sanitary for providing the carcass collection, which would cover the Halfway, Unity, Durkee and Richland areas.

“This is supposed to be totally free to the landowner,” Solomon said.

Shella DelCurto, a Halfway rancher who, along with her husband, Barry, has had cattle killed by wolves in the past, said the carcass collection program would be beneficial, especially during calving season.

“I think there is a great need,” she told the commission.

The committee will look into putting in a funding request for this project.