Oregon Ranchers Want More Authority To Kill Wolves
AP | April 16, 2013 1:04 p.m. Salem, Oregon
by:AP
Part of Series:
Ecotrope
Eastern Oregon ranchers are asking the Oregon Legislature for more authority to kill wolves that threaten their livestock.
Gray Wolf
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Gray Wolf
Ranchers told a House committee Tuesday that their existing authority to kill wolves caught in the act of killing livestock isn’t enough. Three Eastern Oregon legislators have proposed allowing ranchers to kill any gray wolf they reasonably believe has attacked or harassed their livestock.
Conservationists worry that wolf populations would dwindle.
Both sides are planning meetings to work on a compromise. The House Environment and Natural Resources Committee took no action on the bill Tuesday.
____At the same time, also from Oregon:
URGENT ALERT!
Cougar killing bills are moving to the Oregon house floor.
1. Please immediately contact your representatives and ask them to vote NO on bills that allow counties to overturn the Oregon state law prohibiting the unethical practice of setting packs of hounds on cougars to chase them up trees for easy targets by trophy hunters.
These bills set a terrible precedent by letting counties decide which state laws they chose to acknowledge.
You can find your representatives’ contact information here:
http://www.leg.state.or.us/findlegsltr/
2. Contact Governor Kitzhaber and ask him to VETO any bills that increase cougar mortality and/or overturn the ban on cougar hounding. Tell him you voted with the majority of Oregonians twice to keep unethical trophy hunting practices out of Oregon, not just out of your county.
Governor Kitzhaber
503-378-4582
http://www.oregon.gov/gov/Pages/ShareYourOpinion.aspx
For more information on cougars go to:
http://predatordefense.org/cougars.htm
Exposing the Big Game 
ARGH!
I’ll see your ARGH! and raise you an AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!
LOL! Will this ever end?
“Both sides are planning meetings to work on a compromise.”
How in the hell can you compromise with the insane, which is what these ranchers are?
By fitting them with straight jackets and hockey masks?
On another note, I thought Oregon had placed a ban on lethal predator control, and was forcing ranchers to use non-lethal methods to control predators. I read an article about that a while back.
Apparently the ranchers have other ideas–they like doing it the good ol’ fashion lethal way. It would definitely be a dangerous and terrible precedent to let counties decide which state laws they chose to acknowledge.
I guess oregon is the next arizona, if you catch my drift.
I didn’t know until today that Oregon also has a spring bear hunt. I looked it up because of a photo that’s been circulating about an abandoned black bear cub that was rescued … was wondering if he could have been orphaned through the hunt. As much as I disdain so many of these practices, spring or all-season hunts on animals are so unbelievably cruel. Given that the state is sanctioning this, along with the sea lion branding and shooting in Astoria, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by any of these measures. They’re all at the behest of, as you say, ranchers, fishermen, timber companies ….
I didn’t know Oregon had a spring bear hunt! Yes, it’s the worst time of year for that, considering how dependent the new cubs are then!
Whenever animal groups “compromise” with the enemies of wildlife, the wildlife always loose.
And, this idea of “non-lethal predator control” is another way of manipulating wildlife–to make them behave for humans. It is harassment and dangerous for the animals and it is complete nonsense, and people who belong to these groups should challenge them on it.
Wildlife do not need “control.” The ranchers do. Until they are booted off public lands, and forced to fend for themselves on their private land, nothing will change. This is something I often say, along with others, but the groups keep doing the compromise thing, with the wild animals keep dying.
http://www.foranimals.org