Photos confirm wolves killed Keating lambs

Russ Morgan, ODFW wolf coordinator, says the rubber-jaw traps set around the Jacobs Ranch will grab and hold a wolf without seriously hurting the animal. If a wolf is caught, biologists will fit the animal with a radio-tracking collar, then release it nearby. (Baker City Herald/S. John Collins)

“This is the first confirmed depredation of livestock by wolves in Oregon” since the predators, which were extirpated from the state about 1946, returned in 1999, said Russ Morgan, wolf coordinator with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Morgan said Tuesday afternoon that a camera he set up at the Jacobs ranch about 15 miles northeast of Baker City photographed two wolves around 3 o’clock Monday morning.

But after looking at the images on a larger screen at the ODFW office, he recognized the two big canines were in fact wolves.

To verify his conclusion, Morgan said he e-mailed the photos to wolf experts in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, who confirmed that the animals in the photos are wolves.

His goal now is to trap the wolves so he can fit them with radio-transmitting collars, which would allow ODFW to monitor their movements and alert Curt and Annie Jacobs if the wolves return to the ranch.

Morgan said it is unfortunate that Oregon’s first confirmed case of wolf depredation on livestock involved an attack on lambs confined in a fenced pen near homes and other buildings, rather than an attack in the forest or rangelands.

The latter is the more typical scenario for wolf attacks on livestock, Morgan said.

Curt Jacobs said he intends to apply for compensation for his losses from Defenders of Wildlife, a group that supported the reintroduction of wolves to Idaho, Montana and Wyoming starting in the mid 1990s.

Although biologists haven’t confirmed where the wolves that killed the sheep came from, several wolves have migrated from Idaho to Oregon during the past decade.

Jacobs said he’ll ask for $100 for each of the 23 lambs, and possibly for $5,000 in losses he’ll incur over the next five years due to the lost production from ewes that were killed or severely injured, for a total of $7,300.

In a press release issued Tuesday, Suzanne Stone of Defenders of Wildlife said the organization has offered to pay Jacobs for the value of his sheep, “if wolves are determined to be responsible.”

Wolves attacked sheep at Jacobs’ ranch  Thursday night, Sunday night and early Monday morning.

Morgan said his goal is to trap the wolves that killed Jacobs’ sheep and fit the wolves with radio tracking collars.

Morgan said he also wants to use other measures allowed under the federal Endangered Species Act to prevent future wolf attacks at the ranch.

“We’ve gotten pretty good at killing coyotes that get into our sheep,” Jacobs said Tuesday. “We put a gun on the four-wheeler or get in a helicopter and hunt down the coyotes, but this wolf deal is a whole different thing.”

“I guess if they catch a wolf, they’ll put a radio collar on it and turn it loose right out here. The only thing I can do if they come after my sheep again is make noise, wave flags or shoot it with rubber bullets or bean bags to scare it away,” Jacobs said.

“I’ve got six guard dogs that do a pretty good job of keeping the coyotes away, but they tell me the wolves will kill the guard dogs, so I’m keeping them penned up.”

Morgan said that if biologists trap any wolves, they will release the animals nearby, rather than taking the wolves to Idaho.

In March 1999, when biologists first confirmed that a wolf had crossed the border from Idaho into Oregon, officials trapped the wolf in Grant County and took it back to Idaho.

Wolves in Northeastern Oregon will be protected under the Endangered Species Act until at least May 4.

That law prohibits people from killing or harming wolves, even ones that are in the act of attacking livestock.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced earlier this month that it intends to remove wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains, including Northeastern Oregon, Idaho and Montana, from the endangered list as of May 4.

Conservation groups, however, have vowed to file lawsuits to try to block the delisting.

Such lawsuits succeeded in 2008, when a federal judge overturned the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to remove federal protection for wolves.

Even if the animals lose federal protection, they will still be protected under Oregon’s endangered species act.

Oregon’s wolf management plan, which the state Fish and Wildlife Commission approved in 2005, would allow livestock owners to shoot wolves that are attacking domestic animals.

However, that provision in the wolf plan won’t take effect unless the Oregon Legislature changes state law. Legislators have considered such changes twice this decade, but have yet to approve the changes.

Curt Jacobs’ father, Ralph, who started herding sheep on the ranch when he was six years old and has been at it for 83 years, said wolves are one predator his family never had to deal with in the 99 years since his father, Harry Jacobs, founded the ranch in 1910.

“I’ve fought bear, coyotes, cougar and every other thing, but I never had to fight them right here in our feedlot before,” Ralph Jacobs said.

“My dad homesteaded here 100 years ago next year, and we never had a wolf on the place,” he said. “Hell, we hardly knew how to spell wolf.”

One of the experts Morgan called on to help identify and trap the wolves is Carter Niemeyer, whom Curt Jacobs calls “The Wolf Man.”

 Niemeyer was a member of the federal Wildlife Services team that trapped 66 wolves in Alaska in 1995 and 1996 and released them in Yellowstone National Park and Central Idaho as part of the wolf reintroduction program.

Niemeyer retired last year after a 33-year career working with wolves for the USDA and later with Wildlife Services. Now he volunteers to track down wolves thought to be descendants of the wolves released in the 1990s, in cases when wolves are blamed for livestock depredation and other problems. Niemeyer also comes out of retirement for a few months each summer to track and trap wolves for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

“I looked at the pictures, and my opinion is he has pictures of wolves,” Niemeyer said.

He said wolf populations have risen much faster than he or anyone involved in the initial reintroduction imagined.

Since those 66 Alaskan wolves were released — 35 in Idaho and 31 in Yellowstone — the population has grown to an estimated 1,600 wolves across Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, and a few others that have migrated into Oregon, Washington, Utah and Colorado, Niemeyer said.

However, he said that expansion has created problems, including an increasing number of livestock depredation cases. 

“I spend more time than anybody in the Northern Rockies looking at livestock damage by wolves,” Niemeyer said. “It’s pretty unusual for wolves to come in near buildings and people and kill little lambs and not adult sheep, but I have seen it before in Idaho.”

“Some wolves develop habits of killing certain types of livestock and not others,” Niemeyer said. “These wolves could easily kill adult sheep. It doesn’t take a pack to kill a yearling elk calf or yearling cattle.”

Although most wolves feed on wild animals, primarily deer, elk and smaller game such as mice and gophers, Niemeyer said he comes across cases like the lamb killing at the Jacobs ranch from time to time that perpetuate the predators’ “big bad wolf” reputation.

“I have a lot of pride in the wolf recovery program, but I know they have to be managed,” Niemeyer said. “It’s been a very controversial issue, very heated, very emotional, very passionate.”

“Almost everyone on the street has an opinion, whether they love or hate wolves,” Niemeyer said. “Wildlife managers need to balance all of those needs and values.”

“Wildlife managers need to make sure they are fair to the ranchers” whose livestock are killed by wolves, he said.

Proponents of wolf reintroduction agreed.

“Wolves and livestock co-exist just like other wildlife co-exists with livestock, but unfortunately there will be occasional losses like (the Jacobs sheep),” said Stone from Defenders of Wildlife. “Defenders has worked with hundreds of ranchers in our region to avoid conflicts with wolves, and compensate for losses when appropriate.”

Recent documented wolf attacks on people in Canada serve as a reminder that claims that wolves don’t target livestock or humans are not true of all wolves.

“Of all the big predators, the wolf is very capable of killing people. It is rare, but they’ve got the teeth for it,” Niemeyer said.

After looking at the photos e-mailed by Morgan on Monday, Niemeyer volunteered and was on the road within 45 minutes from his home in Idaho to Keating to help track down the wolves.

“I’ve always been a trapper since I was a small boy. I like the challenge. It’s not the challenge to kill them. It’s the challenge of tracking them, figuring out where to set a trap, and getting them to put their foot in one little 6-inch spot,” Niemeyer said.

This isn’t the first time Niemeyer has helped Morgan track and trap wolves in Oregon and fit them with radio collars.

“I came in and worked with Russ last summer when wolves were spotted above La Grande,” Niemeyer said. That was the first documented case of a pack of wolves in Oregon since wolves were released in Idaho in 1995.

Niemeyer said he was also on the team that tracked, trapped and collared the first pair of wolves and wolf pups found in Washington state last year in the North Cascades near Twisp.

At the Jacobs Ranch, Niemeyer and Morgan spent Monday afternoon and all day Tuesday following wolf tracks and finding other wolf signs, such as droppings, to identify the path the wolves followed.

Niemeyer said the wolves most likely traveled the five to six miles from the forest above Keating Valley, to the Jacobs ranch, in less than 20 minutes.

“Wolves have large lungs, long legs and big feet. They lope along at 3 to 4 miles per hour, and they can run along at 20 mph for hours without breathing hard,” Niemeyer said.

Once they map the wolves’ travel corridor, Morgan and Niemeyer will pick the best spots for burying rubber-coated foot traps designed to trap the wolves without seriously hurting them.

“The traps we’re using are called easy grip foothold traps,” Morgan said. “They have rubber jaws.”

“We have a responsibility if we trap an animal to reduce the risk of injury as much as possible, even in a setting like this,” Morgan said.

By trapping the wolves that killed Jacobs’ lambs, Morgan said he can help prevent future attacks by attaching a radio transmitter collars to the wolves, which will alert ODFW and Jacobs if the animals return to the sheep pens.

“I feel right now my primary responsibility is to help this fellow here (Jacobs) who has suffered a loss,” Morgan said.

Morgan said he may also install two types of behavioral fencing.

The first type has flags that blow in the wind and are supposed to drive wolves away.

If that doesn’t prevent the wolves from entering the sheep pens, Morgan said the second option is to install electric fencing.

“The main goal is to keep this from happening again,” Morgan said.