Oregon may soon be the first Western state to
independently welcome back wolves following their near eradication
and reintroduction in the Lower 48. In September, a citizen panel
of ranchers, hunters, wildlife activists and others presented the
state Fish and Wildlife Commission with a blueprint that would
allow eight or more wolf packs to move in from neighboring
Idaho.
The strategy calls for at least four breeding pairs
of wolves on both sides of a north-south line that divides Oregon
roughly in half. The division is designed to spread the
responsibility for wolf recovery across the state: Eastern
Oregonians could loosen protections for the animals, even if they
haven’t fully recovered in the western half of the state. “I
just don’t want people in northeast Oregon to be stuck with
having to deal with them, while people in Portland say,
‘Isn’t it nice we have wolves in Oregon?’ ” says
Joe Colver, a Portland trapper who helped draw up the
plan.
If the Fish and Wildlife Commission accepts the plan
in October, and the Legislature adjusts the laws accordingly,
ranchers will be allowed to kill wolves they catch attacking
livestock, although they will need a permit to do so on public
land. A compensation fund will reimburse them for losses to
wolves.
“I would prefer never to have a wolf in Oregon,
but that’s not realistic now,” says rancher Clint Krebs, who
summers livestock in the Wallowa Mountains of northeastern Oregon,
and also served on the citizen panel. Oregon’s state
Endangered Species Act requires the state to restore wolves across
much of their range.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Wolves are welcome in one Western state.
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