As a farmer, I sympathize with the Oregon farmers who are losing livestock to wolves.

As a wolf advocate, I am bothered by the lethal removal of wolves, two at a time, that is probably neither effective in stopping predation nor conserving wolves.

What to do?

Perhaps there is a piece of data that might be helpful. In any given location, what is happening to the deer when cattle are dumped on the place where they raise the wolves raise their pups?

If deer are forced out by cattle, then the wolves have no choice but to feed on cattle to survive.

What if the deer would hang around if there are 100 cattle, but not 200? What if we are putting cattle right on top of den or rendezvous sites (as Washington State University wolf scientist Robert Wielgus managed to inform us is happening, despite the appalling interference of legislators in university research).

What if certain areas can only sustain so much grazing and it is all taken up by cattle? What if there were corridors where there was no grazing allowed?

Some packs don’t kill cattle. Why is that? The assumption is that “wolves develop a taste for cattle,” but maybe there is more to it.

Given a choice, wolves prefer their native prey.

Perhaps the land can support both cattle and wolves if there is a more careful, nuanced approach to how and where and how many cattle are put on the public land when wolves are raising their young.

Chris Albert

Lebanon Junction, Kent.