Understanding the Wolf Issue

The gray wolf is making a come back. Numbers are on the rise and in many areas being removed from endangered lists. And while they are beautiful creatures, they are fearsome hunters. But when they hunt and kill livestock it hurts the ranchers livelihood. Bill Hoyt is a rancher and former President of the Oregon Cattleman's Association says there are laws in place to help.

HOYT: When I was the President of the Cattleman's we passed a law that was called the Wolf Compensation Bill and what that does is create a fund out of the general fund in Oregon for $100-thousand that goes through the Department of Agriculture and it's part of the Department of Agriculture's budget. What happens is in wolf areas or potential wolf areas each county would form a wolf compensation committee. Those seven would then take applications from ranchers who have sustained a verifiable loss.

There are some steps that ranchers have to take as well before hand.

HOYT: Each rancher that participates by getting money must have already taken steps to prevent wolf depredation through non-lethal measures. Those are things like fladry and putting up an electric fence and doing things that would deter a wolf from coming on to their property.

Tomorrow we will continue this chat with Bill Hoyt on the wolf issue.

That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.