Since we are having conversations about wolves, the public deserves a few more facts. Although Wally Sykes is correct about payments made to ranchers to compensate for wolf kills on livestock, he failed to mention that the payments are made to the specifications of the Oregon Wolf Plan, which was agreed upon by people on both sides of the issue.

Also, the compensation does not fully reimburse the rancher, and having received compensation myself, (as a livestock producer), I know it never will. It only addresses the body of the victimized animal, not the effect on herd health, future loss of calves due to stress related abortions and nonbreeding and extra expenses and time spent protecting animals, as the Birkmaiers reiterated.

Ranchers are also routinely turned down for compensation because, as Russ Morgan put it, “We have to meet about 60 criteria before we can confirm a wolf kill, otherwise the environmentalists sue us.” As an example, on May 19 this year, a producer found six calves with injuries, but ODFW determined that just three of those were wolf related, even though it appeared they were all injured in the same time frame. The plan was not put in place just to protect wolves, but to make sure that a large segment of the economy of Oregon, i.e. cattle and sheep producers, were not unduly affected by the allowance of wolves to return to the state.

The majority of all wolf livestock kills in Oregon have been on private property! Wolves don’t live in Wally’s backyard, but he wants it to be OK for them to live in my backyard. I am constrained by a corrupt national Department of Fish and Wildlife to dealing with an unwanted predator, which is not endangered and never has been. There are over 60,000 wolves in Canada alone!

The purpose of putting the wolf on the endangered species list was only to introduce the wolf back into an area of our country that they want to re-wild, by driving all human activity out. There are maps of wildlife corridors the environmentalists would like to designate “for animals only,” which includes Wallowa County and goes from the Canadian border all the way to Mexico! In order to accomplish this, ranchers, farmers, miners, hunters, fishermen, small towns, resort areas and camping areas would have to be exterminated.

So basically what Wally is saying is, we should let the wolves multiply until they eat ranchers out of a livelihood, threaten children and domestic animals, run off the tourists and destroy the ability of residents of our county to make a living, so the town will shut down and the wolves can take over.

Maybe it hasn’t dawned on Wally and his cohorts that that will mean they also have to move on, because there will be no grocery stores, no gas stations, no doctors or medical care and no motels to stay in for visitors.

Connie Dunham

Enterprise