Cougar opt-out legislation passes Oregon House; other wildlife legislation moving slowly

The big news for wildlife (or anti-wildlife, depending on your perspective) legislation is the Oregon House passed House Bill 2624 on April 23. This bill, which now goes to the Senate, would allow counties to opt out of the statewide prohibition against hunting cougars with hounds passed by voter initiative in 1994. It would also allow bears to be hunted with hounds as well as hunted using bait to attract them. Opting out would be by a county initiative brought to the voters by collecting enough signatures to put a measure on a ballot or by referral to the voters from a county commissioner.  

HB 2390, which repeals the sunset clause in legislation authorizing the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to hire agents to hunt cougars and bears with dogs for management purposes, also passed the House on March 19 and now goes to the Senate.

Senate Bill 428, which would allow hunting cougars with dogs during the last three months of the year in cougar zones where the annual quota has not been reached, HB 3395 that would require ODFW to create a pilot program allowing hunters to use dogs for hunting cougars and HB 2324 that would set up an account the public could donate to for livestock safety and wildlife protection programs have not yet advanced out of committee.

SB 197, pushed by the Oregon Cattleman’s Association, which would expand the circumstances in which they could kill wolves, is still in committee and environmentalists and livestock interests are reported to be working out compromise language. HB 3437 that would have required most future appointees to the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission to have a hunting or fishing license for the previous five years is said to be dead.

“Wolves in the Land of Salmon” lecture by Dave Moskowitz in Portland April 16

Author and photographer Dave Moskowitz will be presenting a talk and photography from his new book “Wolves in the Land of Salmon” that examines wolves and the issues and values they represent as they re-colonize the Pacific Northwest. It’s part of the Mount St. Helens Institute’s Volcano Views & Brews lecture series. Moskowitz’s presentation is scheduled for 6:30 pm, Tuesday, April 16 at the Ecotrust Building in Portland. A donation of $5 is suggested. It sounds like a program worth checking out. 

Bill to limit eligibility for Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission members has hearing today

House Bill 3437, which would require people under consideration for appointment to the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission to have had an Oregon hunting or fishing license for the previous 10 years to be eligible, will have a hearing today in Salem. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission is the advisory and rule-making body of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife established by state law.

The bill, introduced by Representative Sal Esquivel (R-Medford), would have the effect of limiting Commission members to dedicated hunters and angler. While hunter and angler representation on the Commission is needed, Oregon’s fish and wildlife resources belong to all residents of the state and are supposed to be managed as a public trust. That means non-game wildlife and fish need to be managed and conserved, and the desires and views of the non-hunting public on how those resources are managed also needs to be considered and incorporated into wildlife and fish policy.

This bill would stack the Commission exclusively with hunters and anglers, making many fish and wildlife experts ineligible to serve simply because they are not hunters or anglers themselves. This will reduce the influence that people concerned with fish and wildlife from a non-consumptive perspective will have on policy, which I suspect is the whole idea behind the bill. Rob Klavins, of Oregon Wild, has a good post on this subject at Blue Oregon.

NOTE: The bill has now been amended to allow two seats on the six-member commission who don't meet the hunting or fishing license requirement. In addition, the required length of holding a license has been reduced to five consecutive years.

Bill to allow counties to opt out of ban on hunting cougars and bears with hounds scheduled for hearings on Tuesday

Hearings on House Bills 2624 and 3395 have been schedule by the Oregon House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources for tomorrow, Tuesday April 2 at 8:30 am in Hearing Room D of the State Capitol building in Salem.

Introduced by Brian Clem (D-Salem) at the request of the Oregon Outdoor Council, HB 2624 would allow voters in each county to vote to opt out of the statewide ban on hunting cougars and bears with dogs or using bait to hunt bears. HB 3395 would require the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to create a pilot program that allows the use of dogs to hunt cougars.

Hunting cougars and bears using hounds to pursue them, along with hunting black bears by attracting them to bait stations, was banned in Oregon by the passage of Measure 18 in 1994. A subsequent ballot measure to overturn Measure 81 was defeated by voters. Since then, the battle has shifted to the State Legislature where hunting and livestock groups have been attempting to make these hunting methods legal once again, but have so far failed and it seems unlikely that Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber (D) would sign legislation that directly undoes a law supported twice in the past by Oregon voters.

ODFW puts GPS collars on two Snake River pack wolves

ODFW wildlife biologists captured two wolves from the Snake River pack and placed GPS collars on them on March 14. One of the wolves was OR15 that was fitted with a VHF radio collar when he was a pup last summer. His radio collar was replaced with a GPS collar. The other wolf that was collared is OR18 and is a year older than OR15. You can read the short news item about the capture on the ODFW wolf web page.

Dispersing Imnaha pack wolf OR7 back in Oregon

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is confirming that dispersing Imnaha pack wolf OR7 crossed back over the border from California into southwest Klamath County sometime yesterday evening. On Monday and most of Tuesday his GPS collar located him in northeastern Siskiyou County, California. He spent most of his time last fall in the Mount Shasta area. Links to more information are: ODFW wolf web page, California Fish and Game wolf blog and wolf webpage.