Ok, 51,200 cows died in Oregon in 2010 from non-predation causes. (NASS 2010) This should be front page news, right? When wolves are involved in miniscule livestock losses they make the front pages of local media. So what about those 51,200 cows that weren’t killed by wolves?

ODFW is planning on killing the alpha male (pictured left) and another wolf from the Imnaha Pack, for tiny livestock losses. Yet huge numbers of cows drop dead in Oregon every year and all we hear is “crickets”.

So here we are, two wolves facing a death sentence. Apparently they are being tracked right now.

“A department hunter is looking first for a member of the pack not collared with a radio transmitter, Morgan said. Then he will go after the alpha male, which goes by the number OR4 and sired the first pups in Oregon since wolves began moving back into the state from Idaho in the 1990s.”

The alpha female and her pup of the year will be left to face the winter alone, with no help to bring down prey.

Here is B-300 (see video) better known as “Sophie”, crossing into Oregon in 2008. She would later become the alpha female of the Imnaha Pack. Look at her scampering along, beautiful and healthy. Little did she know what she was getting into.

In protest of ODFW’s egregious intention to slaughter two perfectly healthy Imnaha wolves, leaving just the alpha female and her pup of the year, two Portland Animal Defense League protesters, Stephanie Taylor and Justin Kay, chained themselves to the ODFW headquarter doors with bike locks.

Two arrested during protest against wolf killings

September 27, 2011

By Brian MacMillan
SALEM, OR (KPTV) –

For nearly an hour and a half Tuesday morning, protestors took over the front entrance of the Department of Fish and Wildlife in Salem.

“We’ve tried everything from phone calls to the governor, phone calls here, letter writing, protests. Finally today, it ended with an act of civil disobedience,” said Tim Hitchins, with the Portland Animal Defense League.

Read More

The sad news is this is probably the end of the Imnaha Pack.

“ODFW has been under really intense pressure from the cattlemen,” Pedery said from Portland, Ore. “This is really a kill order on the pack. It is very unlikely the mother and her pup will survive the winter unless they feed on gut piles (left by deer and elk hunters), which puts them at risk of poachers, or feed on livestock. They really have little hope of bringing down a deer or elk by themselves.”

Oregon had 1,300,000 cattle at the beginning of 2011. Wolves apparently were responsible for 14 cow losses in 1.5 years. But thousands and thousands of cows were keeling over in Oregon from all manner of things, not wolf related.

Digestive problems — Respiratory problems — Metabolic problems — Mastitis — Lameness/injury — Other diseases — Weather related — Calving problems — Poisoning — Theft (NASS 2010)

Why aren’t ranchers squawking about this? Those losses COULD affect their “bottom line”, not 14 supposed wolf depredations.

Isn’t it time to call this situation what it is. If if looks like a duck, quacks like a duck then it’s a duck. Plain and simple intolerance of wolves is ruling the day in eastern Oregon. Apparently ranchers don’t want them there and that’s what’s driving this train. The wishes of Oregon’s wildlife advocates and others, who would enjoy seeing wild wolves, apparently don’t count. The scapegoating and hysteria that plague the other wolf states has apparently taken hold in Oregon. Shame. This has completely altered my view of the state.

51,200 dead cows not killed by wolves. Where’s the media??
===

Wolf kill order could spell end of Oregon pack
Please continue to call Oregon’s Governor Kitzhaber (503-378-4582) to protest the kill order on the two Imnaha wolves. Ask why wolves are being treated like criminals, collared, tracked continually, when obviously these losses are ridiculously miniscule.