Ranchers battle wolf rulings


Ranchers contend Oregon is too quick to rule out wolves in livestock deaths, increasing the likelihood of steep financial losses on the farm.

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Ranchers contend Oregon is too quick to rule out wolves in livestock deaths, increasing the likelihood of steep financial losses on the farm.

Wolves roamed the West before they were hunted to extinction in the 19th and early 20th century in most of the lower 48 states. They were reintroduced into Idaho and Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s and thrived, with more than 1,600 of the predators roaming the Northern Rockies today.

Experts believe more than two dozen wolves now live in Washington and Oregon, all east of the Cascade Mountains.

Earlier this year, Congress stripped federal endangered-species protections from wolves in Montana, Idaho and the eastern one-third of Washington and Oregon. They remain listed in the western two-thirds of those states.

Read more in today’s Bend Bulletin.