They called him OR-4, and by some accounts he was Oregon’s biggest and baddest wolf, 97 pounds of cunning in his prime and the longtime alpha male of Wallowa County’s influential Imnaha Pack.

But OR-4 was nearly 10, old for a wolf in the wild. And his mate limped with a bad back leg. Accompanied by two yearlings, they apparently separated from the rest of the Imnaha Pack or were forced out. In March, they attacked and devoured or injured calves and sheep five times in private pastures.

So on March 31, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife staff boarded a helicopter, rose up and shot all four.

The decisive action by ODFW may have marked a somber turning point in the state’s work to restore wolves to the landscape. It comes on the heels of the ODFW Commission’s decision in November 2015 to take gray wolves off the state endangered species list, and just as the commission is beginning a review of the Oregon Wolf Plan, the document that governs wolf conservation and management.

Oregon Wild, the Portland-based conservation group with long involvement in the state’s wolf issue, said shooting wolves should be an “absolute last resort.”

“While the wolf plan is out of date and under review, we shouldn’t be taking the most drastic action we can take in wolf management,” Executive Director Sean Stevens said in an email.

The commission should not have taken wolves off the state endangered species list in the first place, but it isn’t likely to revisit that decision, Stevens said.

The commission should call upon the department to not shoot more wolves until the plan review is finished, he said.

“But, more importantly, they should recognize that de-listing does not mean that we should suddenly swing open the doors to more aggressive management,” Stevens said.

The ongoing wolf plan review, which may take nine months, should include science that wasn’t considered in the delisting decision, and the public’s will, he said. It also should create more clarity on non-lethal measures to deter wolves, he said.

Publicly, at least, no one is celebrating the shootings.

The Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, long on the opposite side of the argument from Oregon Wild, said ODFW’s action was authorized by Phase II of the state’s wolf plan.

“The problem needed addressed and ODFW handled it correctly,” spokeswoman Kayli Hanley said in an email. “We acknowledge that while this decision was necessary for the sake of species coexistence, it was a difficult decision.”

Michael Finley, chair of the ODFW Commission, said the department handled the situation properly.

“I feel that the department acted in total good faith,” Finley said. “They followed the letter and the spirit of the wolf plan.”

Another conservation group, Defenders of Wildlife, called the shootings “a very sad day for us” but also said it appeared ODFW followed the wolf plan.

“The final plan is a compromise, but it is among the best of all the state plans in that it emphasizes the value of wolves on the landscape, and requires landowners to try non-lethal methods of deterring wolves before killing them is ever considered,” the group said in a prepared statement.

Amaroq Weiss, West Coast wolf organizer for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the Imnaha Pack shootings may lead to more poaching, because killing wolves decreases tolerance of them and leads to a belief that “you have to kill wolves in order to preserve them.”

Weiss agreed that coming across a calf or sheep that’s been torn apart and consumed — the skull and hide was all that was left of one calf after the OR-4 group fed on it — must be gut-wrenching for producers. But she said those animals are raised to be killed and eaten. “They don’t die any more a humane death in a slaughterhouse than being killed by a wild animal,” she said. “It’s a hard discussion to find a common place of agreement.”

She said such losses are the reason Oregon established the compensation program: to pay for livestock losses and to help with the cost of defensive measures that scare wolves away.

Weiss said Oregon rushed to move to Phase II of its wolf conservation and management plan in the eastern part of the state, which was prompted by reaching a population goal of four breeding pairs for three consecutive years. That also prompted the ODFW Commission to take wolves off the state endangered species list in 2015, although they remain on the federal endangered list in the western two-thirds of the state.

Like others, Weiss believes the state should have held off on such changes until it finished the mandated review of the wolf plan.

“Under Phase I, Oregon was the state we could all point to” for successfully managing wolves, Weiss said. “I would hope they look at what parts of the wolf plan are working, and look at the parts that are not working.”

Politics and policy aside, the shooting of OR-4 gave people pause. He was a bigger-than-life character; he’d evaded a previous ODFW kill order and had to be re-collared a couple times as he somehow shook off the state’s effort to track him.

OR-4’s Imnaha Pack was the state’s second oldest, designated in 2009, and it produced generations of successful dispersers. OR-4’s many progeny included Oregon’s best-known wanderer, OR-7, who left the Imnaha Pack in 2011 and zig-zagged his way southwest into California before settling in the Southern Oregon Cascades.

OR-25, which killed a calf in Klamath County and now is in Northern California, dispersed from the Imnaha Pack. The alpha female of the Shasta Pack, California’s first, is from the Imnaha Pack as well.

Rob Klavins, who lives in Wallowa County and is Oregon Wild’s field representative in the area, ran across OR-4’s tracks a couple times and saw him once.

Despite his fearsome reputation, the wolf tucked his tail between his legs, ran behind a nearby tree and barked at Klavins and his hiking group until they left.

“Killing animals four or five times your size is a tough way to make a living,” Klavins said. “Some people appreciate OR-4 as a symbol of the tenacity of wolves, even a lot of folks who dislike wolves have sort of a begrudging respect for him.”

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Federal authorities have arrested a Montana man accused of taking part in the armed occupation of an Oregon wildlife refuge.

Jake Ryan was booked into a Portland jail Tuesday on charges of depredation of government property, conspiracy to impede officers and possession of weapons in a federal facility.

Ryan was to have a federal public defender assigned to him at his initial court appearance.

He is one of more than two dozen people arrested in connection with the 41-day takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The men and women were protesting U.S. land restrictions and the imprisonment of two Harney County ranchers who started fires.

The federal judge overseeing the case has scheduled jury selection to start Sept. 7.

Sheriff Tom Rummel of Montana’s Sanders County said he believes Ryan’s arrest will ease the tension that had been building while FBI agents were in talks with Ryan’s family about his whereabouts.

Rummel, worried that a new conflict could emerge in Ryan’s hometown between federal agents and supporters of the Malheur refuge occupiers, had issued statements warning outsiders to stay away.

I attended productions of both Bandon Playhouse and New Artists Productions recently. It always amazes me to see the caliber of community theater that we are exposed to in our community.

I attended productions of both Bandon Playhouse and New Artists Productions over the weekend. It always amazes me to see the caliber of community theater that we are exposed to in our community.

LANGLOIS -- Ginger Pearson from Coast Community Health Center will be at the Langlois Public Library from 3-6 p.m. Wednesday, April 20. She will be introducing individuals in Curry County to self-sufficiency programs. These programs include such things as OHP,…

KLAMATH, Calif. — Top state and federal officials made their latest Klamath River dam removal pact official April 6, as proponents vowed to keep pushing for water-sharing agreements that would benefit Klamath Basin farmers.

California Gov. Jerry Brown and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown were joined by U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and other dignitaries at a resort on the Yurok Tribe’s reservation, where they inked the final version of the dam-removal plan they announced in February.

The plan calls for a nonprofit organization to take control of the four dams from owner PacifiCorp and seek a go-ahead for their removal from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

It’s a day to reaffirm our shared commitment to restore and heal the Klamath Basin,” Jewell said, “and to acknowledge the incredible and brave partners and leaders who, despite setbacks, stayed at the table.”

California’s Jerry Brown said the agreement is a testament to “non-extremism and non-polarization,” as people from different backgrounds worked to put it together.

“What we’re doing today in healing this river has implications not only for the United States but all over the world,” he said.

In addition, the parties signaled a plan to revive the companion Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, including water-sharing agreements between farmers, tribes and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and various fisheries improvements around the basin.

The side agreement includes support for federal legislation that would provide money to operate two diversion dams within the basin that PacifiCorp would turn over to Reclamation so irrigators wouldn’t have to pick up the cost, said Craig Tucker, the Karuk Tribe’s natural resources policy advocate.

“It’s really a promise to ag that we’re going to stay at the table with them and continue to support the things they need,” Tucker told the Capital Press before the ceremony.

Oregon’s Kate Brown said the agreements will heal divisions in the Klamath Basin, providing fisheries improvements for tribes and “a sustainable and predictable source of water” for ranchers and farmers.

“It’s about the future we want to leave for our children and our children’s children,” she said.

The governors and Jewell were joined in the morning ceremony by Pacific Power President and CEO Stefan Bird, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Kathryn Sullivan, Yurok Tribe Chairman Thomas O’Rourke, Karuk Tribe Chairman Russell Attebery and representatives of nongovernmental and water users’ groups.

The ceremony was to sign off on a final version of the 133-page agreement announced Feb. 2 by PacifiCorp, the states of Oregon and California and the federal Departments of the Interior and Commerce. The new agreement was reached after Congress failed to authorize the original Klamath Basin water-sharing pacts by the end of 2015.

The officials stood near the mouth of the Klamath River and signed the agreements atop a fish-cleaning table. The event was streamed online by the Yurok Tribe.

The amended Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement will maintain the timeline for dam removal in 2020 and use the same funding as before — $200 million from PacifiCorp ratepayers and $250 million from California’s Proposition 1 water bond, which voters passed in 2014.

The separate agreement — called the 2016 Klamath Power and Facilities Agreement — aims to help Klamath Basin irrigators avoid any adverse impacts from the return of fish runs to the Upper Klamath Basin after dam removal, proponents said.

Removing dam removal from the equation could make it more politically palatable for lawmakers to support other aspects of the agreements. In December, Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., introduced a bill to move forward on other aspects of the agreements.

Another bill by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has so far languished in the upper chamber’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Most of the 42 original signatories have been working for the past two months to iron out details of the new pact, and the parties held a public meeting March 16 in Sacramento to gather input. The process has drawn criticism from dam removal opponents, who in recent weeks have accused proponents of meeting in secret and claimed the private entity created under the new plan would still need congressional approval.

One of the most vocal critics has been Lawrence Kogan, a New York-based water-rights attorney hired by the Klamath Irrigation District. Kogan alleges the government agencies are violating the original agreements by not giving the district enough time to study the new proposal and failing to disclose key elements of the pact, including an economic impact study he said Oregon and California utilities regulators will rely on in considering dam-removal permits.

Kogan sent an email April 4 urging Klamath Basin Coordinating Council facilitator Ed Sheets to postpone the signing ceremony until the irrigation district’s questions are resolved. He said he didn’t receive a response.

“We are objecting to the process that they violated and continue to violate,” Kogan told the Capital Press, adding that the district may sue to block the agreement.

At the ceremony, Jewell said the district’s meet-and-confer request has put the Upper Basin agreement into question, but “we are as committed” to the agreement “as we were on the day we first signed.”

The Karuk Tribe’s Tucker said in an interview the tribes and environmental groups were going to push for the dams’ removal to save beleaguered salmon runs regardless of whether an agreement was in place. He said it would be better for Klamath Basin irrigators if a water-rights settlement could be put in place.

Among the signing ceremony’s attendees was U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., who said beforehand that the state and federal governments are “working toward one of the greatest restoration projects in history.”

Tucker agreed, arguing the dams’ removal would be “the greatest act of salmon restoration ever undertaken in America.”

“Dam removal hasn’t happened yet,” he said. “We still have hoops to jump through. I believe … we cannot fix this without working with ag. We still have to come to terms on water-sharing with ag. Whether the dams stay or go doesn’t change that commitment to work with people in good faith to find solutions to water-sharing.”

Oregon’s snowpack and summer water supply outlook remain much improved over last year, according to the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in Portland.

Snow survey supervisor Scott Oviatt said a couple of hot days — temperatures on April 6 and 7 were forecast to reach the low 80s — shouldn’t pose too much of a problem. A lengthy stretch of warm days, however, would be a different matter.

As of April 6, every river basin in the state was above average for precipitation, with measurements running 106 percent to 128 percent of normal for this time of year.

The amount of water contained in the snow hasn’t quite kept pace, with snow water equivalents ranging from 74 percent to 107 percent of normal.

But Oviatt said that’s where perspective comes in. The Willamette Basin’s snow water equivalent is 81 percent of normal now, he said, but last year at this time it was 8 percent.

Timely March precipitation has helped increase reservoir storage across the state, he said, and stream flow forecasts are at or above normal in most cases.

“There will be water available in many locations where we didn’t have water to deliver (last year) to irrigation systems and reservoirs,” Oviatt said. “Overall it’s a pretty good picture.”

Michael Finley, chair of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Commission, knows wolves, that’s fair to say.

He was superintendent of Yellowstone National Park when they were re-introduced in 1995-96. It was controversial, as anyone following wolf management issues in the Pacific Northwest and Northern California can imagine.

The March 31 action by ODFW, in which department staff shot four Imnaha Pack wolves from a helicopter for repeated livestock attacks in northeast Oregon’s Wallowa County, carries similar emotional freight.

“No one took any joy in this action,” said Finley, who retired from the National Park Service in 2001 and moved back to Medford, Ore., where he grew up.

“No one I know on the commission or on the professional staff wants to see wolves killed, period,” Finley said. “There are just places wolves can’t be and times they can’t be there. It’s a simple fact of wolf management.”

Everyone on the commission is working to see wolves recover within their historic Oregon range, Finley said. “We know they probably can’t be in the Willamette Valley; there are certain places they can’t be, the conflict is too great.”

But the problems or concern they cause constituents such as ranchers and hunters have to be addressed, he said. It’s a difficult issue to balance when there are groups on opposite sides — ranchers and farmers on one, conservationists and their urban supporters on the other — who see it differently.

“They read the (wolf plan) language differently and want to interpret it their way,” he said.

“I feel that the department acted in total good faith,” Finley said. “They followed the letter and the spirit of the wolf plan.”

Department staff “bent over backwards to benefit wolves” but also recognized, in fairness, that they had to take action on behalf of the ranchers, Finley said.

The issues and staked-out positions were much the same in Yellowstone 20 years ago when gray wolves, Canis lupus, were brought to the park from Canada.

To throw off potential troublemakers, Finley said wildlife officials moved the wolves in two convoys of horse trailers, one dummy, one with the wolves. He said he carried the first wolf into the park, where they were kept in acclimation pens for a couple months and fed roadkill. Armed guards were stationed at the pens.

The idea of reintroducing an apex predator to Yellowstone came from the “trophic cascade” theory of wildlife management. Oregon State University researchers William Ripple and Robert Beschta are among the principle’s leading experts and studied the outcome at Yellowstone.

Wolves had been missing for about 70 years from Yellowstone, where management practices included park staff drowning pups, Finley said. Over decades, elk over-grazed the park. Restoring wolves not only reduced the elk population but kept elk on the move. Aspens and willows came back, meadows and wetlands rebounded and beavers and waterfowl returned in a “cascade” of ecological reaction. Wolves also chewed up coyotes — “with prejudice,” Finley said — that had decimated the park’s pronghorns.

“Yellowstone was greatly benefited by bringing back the wolves,” said Finley, who also was superintendent of Yosemite and the Everglades national parks during his 32-year career.

In 2011, then-Gov. John Kitzhaber appointed him to the ODFW Commission. As chair, Finley led the commission through the controversial decision in November 2015 to take gray wolves off the state’s endangered species list, and to move on this year with a required review of the Oregon Wolf Plan.

Online

http://www.cof.orst.edu/leopold/papers/RippleBeschtaYellowstone_BioConserv.pdf

Farm regulators are investigating a flurry of complaints about water quality problems from agricultural activities in Oregon’s Polk County.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture received 26 complaints about alleged violations of water regulations in the county over the winter, which is a high volume over a relatively short time period in one area, said John Byers, manager of the agency’s agricultural water quality program.

“That’s certainly not the norm,” he said.

The situation is also unusual because all of the complaints were filed by a farmer who serves as a director of the Polk Soil & Water Conservation District, which aims to mitigate water quality problems, Byers said during a recent meeting of the Oregon Board of Agriculture.

“As a private citizen, he has the ability to do that,” Byers said.

However, the concern is that Polk County residents may think the complaints were brought on behalf of the district, which could dissuade them from inquiring about water quality questions due to a fear of enforcement, he said.

Creating that perception wasn’t the intent of the farmer, who was concerned about prospective violations in his area, Byers said.

“I don’t think it was malicious,” he said.

The goal of ODA’s agricultural water quality program is to ensure compliance with the rules, rather than take enforcement actions such as issuing penalties, Byers said.

Landowners who have water quality violations are assisted by the local soil and water conservation district, so the recent complaints in Polk County raised questions about straining that district’s capacity, he said.

“It becomes a bigger burden on them,” Byers said.

Even so, the complaints have invigorated discussions about water quality in the region, which may ultimately help further the program’s goals, he said.

Investigations of the complaints are ongoing, though some have been closed without finding any violations, he said.

The vast majority of the complaints pertain to erosion from a lack of vegetation or crops being planted up and down a slope, though several relate to livestock and manure piles.

Kelly Gordon, a farmer from Monmouth and director of the Polk S&WCD, said he was prompted to file the complaints due to worries about the effect of heavy rains, which likely caught farmers off guard.

Gordon said he did not file the complaints as a representative of the district and doesn’t believe water quality problems have gotten worse in the county.

The district’s manager and another director suggested that Gordon first approach the Polk S&WCD before filing a complaint with ODA, which he plans to do in the future, he said.

“I don’t think it’s a pervasive thing. It just pops up now and again,” Gordon said.

A cheesemaker in Central Oregon faces the revocation of several licenses for his dairy because state farm regulators have accused him of threatening inspectors.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture is seeking to revoke the licenses of Patrick Sullivan, who runs Cada Dia Cheese in Prineville. The Licenses are necessary to operate a fluid milk facility, a dairy products plant, a confined animal feeding operation and a commercial scale.

The agency claims the revocations are warranted because Sullivan has repeatedly barred inspectors from coming onto his property and has subjected ODA employees to “hostile, abusive, and threatening communications.”

ODA has also filed a petition for a restraining order to block Sullivan from “harassing or menacing” its employees or entering the agency’s offices.

Sullivan said he plans to contest both actions by ODA.

“I want to be heard in a court of law,” he said.

Inspectors must access Sullivan’s dairy and cheese-making facility to ensure he’s following laws pertaining to food safety and water pollution control, according to ODA’s revocation order.

Sullivan first refused to allow inspectors to collect necessary samples in 2010 and has since been uncooperative and intimidating on several occasions, including sending emails to ODA about his hatred of government officials, the document said.

His conduct, as well as statements that allude to defending himself with a firearm, “are reasonably perceived as written threats to inflict serious physical injury on ODA employees,” the agency said.

In October 2015, the agency obtained a warrant to enter Sullivan’s property to perform inspections and requested help from the Oregon State Police, the document said.

However, OSP declined because it was unable to get assistance from additional law enforcement officials, preventing the ODA from taking necessary samples, the agency said.

In 2016, Sullivan has told ODA that he will be implementing “anti-terrorist procedures” at his farm and said he’d travel to the agency’s headquarters in Salem to discuss these “terrorist concerns,” according to the revocation order.

Sullivan told Capital Press his problems with ODA are part of a broader conflict with neighbors and law enforcement officials.

“These things don’t happen in a vacuum,” he said.

Sullivan said he encountered complaints shortly after buying the farm in 2009, when neighbors and county officials claimed that visitors to his dairy were causing traffic.

He said a dispute with a neighbor who was formerly a police officer has resulted in harassment from law enforcement agencies.

Sullivan said his relationship with ODA also soured early on, when an inspector tried to make his dairy license contingent on county inspections of his family’s living quarters.

Since then, Sullivan said he protested several actions by ODA, such as an inspector waiting to chill his milk samples instead of putting them on ice immediately and attempting to hang a milk sampling device on an unsanitary sink.

Most recently, Sullivan said he objected to the frequency of water tests and to an ODA inspector entering his property unannounced to take water samples.

Sullivan said he believes the U.S. is “descending into a police state” and wanted to implement similar procedures for government officials as people must follow before boarding an airplane.

“Why shouldn’t I do that to them when they come onto my property?” he said.

Local lakes: South Coast lakes are now loaded with rainbow trout and more are on the way. This week Garrison Lake in Port Orford is scheduled to receive an additional 200 trophy-size trout. Last week, anglers reported catching rainbows in…

Oregon’s best known wandering wolf, OR-7, was photographed by a remote trail camera in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest in late February after not being heard from since his tracking collar failed last June.

The wolf’s dispersal from the Imnaha Pack in September 2011 attracted international attention as GPS collar data points shared by Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife allowed the public to follow his travels.

After leaving Northeast Oregon’s Wallowa County, OR-7 cut through Oregon on a diagonal route, traveling southwest through Baker, Grant, Harney, Crook, Deschutes, Lake, Klamath, Douglas and Jackson counties. On Dec. 28, 2011, he entered California, becoming the first known wolf in the state since 1924. By then, wildlife biologists estimated he’d traveled 1,062 zig-zag miles.

He spent most of 2012 in California, then returned to Oregon in 2013. In 2014, ODFW announced he’d found a mate, an uncollared and unknown female. They’ve produced two litters of pups in what is now called the Rogue Pack.

OR-7 was most likely sired by OR-4, the longtime alpha male of the Imnaha Pack who was among four wolves shot by ODFW March 31 for repeated livestock attacks.

Unlike others from his home Imnaha Pack, OR-7 apparently hasn’t bothered cattle or sheep since taking up residence in Southwest Oregon.

“He’s behaving himself, I’m happy to report,” said John Stephenson, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who tracks wolves in the western part of the state, where the federal Endangered Species Act listing of gray wolves still is in effect.

Stephenson said the trail camera photo was the first direct evidence since last year that OR-7, now about 7-years-old, is alive and well.

He said OR-7 has produced two generations of pups, and said he saw tracks of six or perhaps seven wolves in the snow this past winter.

OR-7 still has a hold on people’s imagination. Stephenson said. He knows of three books being written about the wolf, two of them children’s books. At least one of the authors refers to the wolf as “Journey,” the name given him by conservation groups as they publicized his wanderings.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Oregon, California, the federal government and others have agreed to go forward with a plan to remove four hydroelectric dams in the Pacific Northwest without approval from a reluctant Congress, a spokesman for dam owner PacifiCorp said Monday.

The dam removal is part of an announcement planned Wednesday in Klamath, California, by the governors of both states and U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.

Tearing down the dams would be a major victory for tribes that have fought for years to restore the river for salmon they rely on for subsistence and ceremony.

The move also could breathe new life into a struggling effort to allocate more water for farmers and ranchers in the drought-stricken Klamath Basin.

Under the deal, a nonprofit corporation recently formed in California would take ownership of the hydroelectric dams and assume liability for any damage that stems from their removal, said Bob Gravely, a spokesman for Portland-based PacifiCorp.

The plan, which aims to remove the dams in 2020, still needs approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Going through FERC avoids the need for congressional approval for dam removal, which was required in earlier Klamath plans but met opposition from Republican lawmakers concerned about setting a precedent.

A water settlement agreement expired at the end of 2015 when Congress failed to approve the dam removal. Going around Congress on dams could make it more politically palatable for lawmakers to back other elements of the water agreements.

Dams thwart salmon migration, degrade water quality, alter water flows, and contribute to fish diseases and algae bloom problems. Three tribes depend on the fish for subsistence and ceremonial needs, and a fourth hopes fish will return once the dams are removed.

One of the tribes already has obtained water rights through the courts, limiting water available for farmers and ranchers, and the others could pursue that process. Klamath Basin agriculture is valued at about $670 million annually.

Thomas O’Rourke Sr., chairman of the Yurok Tribe in Northern California, said the Klamath River can begin to heal if the dams come down.

“That’s our livelihood,” O’Rourke said. “If the river’s sick, our fish are sick, the animals that live around it become sick, and the people become sick.”

PacifiCorp has supported a dam-removal agreement because it offers the utility liability protections and caps the costs to its customers. Several studies have shown that dam upgrades likely to be required would significantly reduce electricity generation and would cost millions more than dam removal and replacement of hydropower with other sources.

Funding for the $450 million project would come from PacifiCorp customers in California and Oregon, along with a water bond approved by California voters in 2014.

MULINO, Ore. (AP) — Authorities arrested a 37-year-old man accused of starting a fire that a destroyed a barn in rural Clackamas County.

The sheriff’s office says deputies had been sent to the property in Mulino on a separate matter late Monday. Shortly after leaving, they were called back because the barn was ablaze.

The deputies found the structure engulfed in flames and it was total loss. Nearby residents were evacuated, but there were no reports of injuries.

Deputies arrested Justin Smith of Mulino. He’s charged with arson and criminal mischief.

JORDAN VALLEY, Ore. — Ranchers and others who would be in the middle of a proposed 2.5 million-acre national monument strongly opposed the idea April 3 during a town hall meeting.

People who oppose the proposal should speak up and make sure their voices are heard, said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., who hosted the meeting, which attracted about 300 people, most of them ranchers.

When someone asked what locals could do to make a difference, Walden said, “Education, education, education. Because people just don’t get it and we’re outnumbered. Your involvement matters and it makes a difference.”

The Bend-based environmental group Oregon Natural Desert Association, backed by the Keen Footwear company of Portland, has proposed the establishment of the Owyhee Canyonlands national monument and wilderness area on 2.5 million acres of Bureau of Land Management land in Malheur County.

The Obama administration, which could establish the canyonlands area by presidential proclamation, has given no sign what it will do.

Though proponents say traditional land uses would be allowed under the proposal, opponents believe having more than 40 percent of the county’s land designated as a national monument would restrict grazing and access to these lands and harm the local economy.

When people who support the proposal say the Owyhee Canyonlands is one of the most extraordinary places on earth, “I say, it’s that way because of how it’s being managed today,” Walden said. “It’s that way because of the way you’re taking care of it.”

He encouraged local residents to repeat that point.

“We need to show them what good stewardship looks like and move the public debate because we have a good story to tell,” he said. “It’s critical to show them the good work being done today on the range.”

Jordan Valley is in the middle of the proposed monument area.

“It would have a huge impact on this area,” local rancher Bob Skinner, former president of the Oregon Cattle Association, told Capital Press. “These people are really scared.”

The April 3 meeting is among several town hall meetings being held to help inform people of the proposal and allow them to weigh in, Skinner said.

“We’re trying to make a statement every time we meet,” he said. “We think it’s going to have an impact ... because politicians listen to numbers.”

Walden said a national monument designation could have a huge negative effect on ranching.

“Their plan is to get cattle off the range. Let’s just say it,” he said.

The proposal would encompass about 33 percent of the county’s total grazing land and local ranchers are concerned about access, not only for grazing but to fight fires, manage noxious weeds and maintain water resources, said rancher Elias Eiguren.

He said locals, in conjunction with federal and state land managers, are doing a good job now managing the area.

“There have been literally decades of cooperation between federal and state management agencies and local people who utilize this land in order to make this resource what it is,” he said.

For most ranchers in the area, half of their grazing season depends on the use of public lands, Eiguren said.

“We would be affected 100 percent by” a national monument designation, he said. “It will change our businesses.”

The actions of two rural Oregon sheriffs during an armed standoff at a national wildlife refuge were striking: One worked with federal officials to end the siege while the other questioned the FBI’s authority and offered words of support for the occupiers.

Sheriff Dave Ward of Harney County, where the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is, cooperated with federal and state police, urging standoff leader Ammon Bundy and his followers to stand down and respect the law.

Meanwhile in neighboring Grant County, Sheriff Glenn Palmer called the occupiers “patriots.” When Bundy and others were arrested during a Jan. 26 traffic stop, they were on their way to his county. An Arizona rancher who police fatally shot when they say he reached for a gun shouted he was on his way to meet Palmer.

Palmer is a member of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, a group that bills itself as “the last line of defense” against a federal government they contend overreaches on gun control and other issues. They see sheriffs as the ultimate law enforcement authority in their dispute with the federal government over control of federal lands.

The group’s founder said they are recruiting people to run against sheriffs that don’t support their cause and that the group’s website includes lists of county sheriffs and whether they need to be “recalled or replaced.”

Critics say the group’s views are far outside the mainstream. Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which for decades has advocated against groups it considers extremist, called the CSPOA “a remarkably radical organization, considering who their members are.”

“Many constitutional sheriffs believe they can pass a local law and forbid federal authorities from coming into a county,” he said. “That is patently false.”

Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff and CSPOA founder, said he didn’t support the occupation of the wildlife refuge, “but I understand the complete frustration people have in this country towards this government.” Mack said the group will work to defeat Ward in the November election.

Mack’s group, founded in 2011, claims more than 400 of the nation’s more than 3,000 county sheriffs support its positions, which hold that elected county sheriffs should oppose federal agents whose conduct appears to violate the U.S. Constitution.

The CSPOA is unequivocal about gun rights. It supports the right of criminals and the mentally ill to carry firearms and opposes gun registration or background checks.

In conservative Kootenai County, Idaho, popular sheriff Ben Wolfinger has drawn two opponents who support the concept of constitutional sheriffs. Tina Kunishige, one of the candidates, said sheriffs need to decide which laws are constitutional.

“I’m very comfortable with that,’ said Kunishige, who has no law enforcement experience. “I’ve studied the Constitution for a number of years.”

Wolfinger said he doesn’t need an outside group like the CSPOA to approve how he does his job. “I believe that the people I serve in Kootenai County will hold me accountable to do the job that they elected me for,” Wolfinger said.

Sheriffs who support the CSPOA have faced backlash.

Palmer, the sheriff who sided with the Oregon occupiers, has drawn an opponent in the November elections who criticized him for making his own interpretations of the Constitution.

And Palmer, who did not respond to interview requests from The Associated Press, is being investigated by the state for his actions during the Oregon standoff. If Palmer is found to have violated standards, he could lose his police certification.

The Oregon occupation started on Jan. 2 and ended Feb. 11 when the last holdouts surrendered to authorities. It began as a protest amid mounting tension over the case of local ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond.

The Hammonds lit fires on federal land in 2001 and 2006 to protect their property from wildfires and invasive plants. The two were convicted three years ago and served time — the father three months, the son one year. But an appeals court ruled the sentences were too short under federal law, and a federal judge ordered them back to prison for about four years each.

Mack backs Palmer in the ongoing investigation into his actions.

“He’s an honorable man who has done nothing wrong.” Mack said.

SATURDAY, APRIL 2

ONTARIO, Ore. — Water will start flowing into the Owyhee Irrigation District’s 400 miles of canals, laterals and ditches a week earlier than planned.

OID board members have decided to start the system on April 4 rather than April 11 in part because persistent high winds have dried soils out and a lot of farmers have already planted, said district manager Jay Chamberlin.

“We figured if we waited until the 11th, we would be behind the eight ball,’ he said.

OID provides irrigation water for 1,800 farms and 118,000 acres in Eastern Oregon and part of southwestern Idaho.

OID board member and farmer Frank Ausman said there are spots on the system near Adrian with lighter soils that dry out quicker than other soil in the area.

“Those guys have a lot planted and they’re needing a drink,” he said.

That area near Adrian didn’t receive some of the rainstorms other areas did, said farmer and OID board member Bruce Corn.

Temperatures are also starting to reach into the 70s.

“It will take seven to 10 days for the water to get clear to the end of the system,” Corn said. “I think everybody will be ready for it by the time it comes.”

The board set the 2016 allotment for OID patrons at an initial 3 acre-feet but it’s expected to increase as the Owyhee Reservoir continues to fill.

The board opted not to increase the allotment during its March 30 meeting, Chamberlin said, in part because reservoir in-flow levels decreased a little bit recently as cooler temperatures slowed the pace of snow melt.

Corn said board members are conservative on where they set the allotment.

“It’s easy to raise it but if we over-allocate and then have to lower it, that would be difficult on people who have already made plans,” he said.

Corn anticipates the allotment will be increased April 19 during the board’s regular monthly meeting but he said it’s too soon to say whether patrons will receive their full 4 acre-foot allotment.

“I think everybody knows the allotment will be increased some amount. How much still remains to be seen,” he said.

The Owyhee Reservoir had 402,000 acre-feet of usable storage water as of March 30, which is 56 percent of it’s total capacity.

Based on U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Natural Resources Conservation Service estimates, between 250,000 and 400,000 acre-feet of water is still headed for the reservoir this year.

Farmers in the region have received only a small portion of their full 4 acre-foot allotment the past three years and this year’s positive water outlook couldn’t have come too soon, said Ausman, who owns a dairy and normally grows his own feed on 300 acres.

However, he hasn’t received enough water to meet all his feed demands recently and has had to purchase it elsewhere.

“Between that and low milk prices, it’s starting to take a toll,” he said. “The last three years have been a killer for me.”

Oregonians listening to the Pandora streaming music website might hear a seemingly surprising commercial about Gov. Kate Brown and the environment.

The new ad, from the environmental advocacy group Oregon Wild, complains about how Brown has handled issues ranging from Portland air pollution to endangered wolves. It charges that she “is failing to protect the things that make the state special.”

Brown has received plenty of favorable publicity on environmental issues. She recently won national praise from many environmentalists for signing major climate-change bills aimed at phasing out coal and reducing the use of fossil fuels in vehicles.  

But many Oregon environmental activists say she hasn’t done enough on some of the state’s long-running conservation issues. And they hope to use the 2016 campaign season to push her into developing a more vigorous agenda.  

“We’re looking for that leadership from her, and so far we haven’t seen that to the degree we would like,” said Doug Moore, executive director of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters.  

Moore’s group, which serves as the political arm of the environmental community, has so far not issued an endorsement in the gubernatorial race. Moore praised many of the governor’s decisions but said she hasn’t staked out a strong vision for what she wants to accomplish if she wins election. Brown faces little opposition in the May 17 Democratic primary and is considered the favorite in the fall against either of the two main Republican contenders, businessman Allen Alley and Salem physician Bud Pierce.  

Brown’s communications director, Kristen Grainger, said in a statement that during Brown’s first 13 months in office, “she has successfully advanced many of the environmental community’s priorities.” In addition to the climate-change bills, Grainger said Brown had a long list of legislative accomplishments that includes winning additional funding for the state’s fish and wildlife agency and a measure reducing toxic chemicals in children’s products.  

Moore and other environmental activists say they recognize that Brown, catapulted into the governor’s seat when John Kitzhaber resigned in early 2015, didn’t have time to craft a prepared list of environmental priorities or even her own environmental staff.  

But Sean Stevens, executive director of Oregon Wild, said his members are troubled by what they’ve seen over the last year. Thus the Internet ad.  

“It doesn’t seem like the environment is high on her priority list,” he said. He noted, for example, that Brown was not the driving force behind either of the climate change bills the legislature passed in 2015 and 2016.

Stevens, whose group focuses on protecting wilderness and wildlife, criticized Brown for not pushing legislators last year on legislation putting new restrictions on aerial spraying in forests. And he said that the long-delayed release of information about alarming air pollution from Portland glassmakers reflected long-standing concerns about the Department of Environmental Quality’s enforcement.  

DEQ Director Dick Pedersen resigned as the pollution scare attracted major news coverage, and Brown outlined several steps she was taking to deal with the problem in a Feb. 15 statement. She acknowledged that “federal and state regulatory programs are clearly inadequate to assure the public that their health is being protected.”  

Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, who has worked closely with the environmental community, said the governor moved quickly once the pollution problems came to light. And he praised Brown’s work in the passage of the coal and clean-fuel bills. 

“But I would agree that her positions have so far been reactive, even if reactive in what I would consider to be a good way,” Dembrow said in an exchange of texts with OPB while traveling abroad. He said Brown needs to “articulate a proactive vision of how Oregon can be a leader in protecting the environment.”  

Stevens, however, said too many of Brown’s reactive decisions have gone in the wrong direction. He said the “straw that broke the camel’s back” and helped spark his group’s ad was Brown’s signing of a wolf bill this month. The measure seeks to shut down a lawsuit challenging the removal of the gray wolf from state’s endangered species list.  

Stevens said efforts to bar environmental litigation have long rankled conservation activists, and he worried that Brown was setting a bad precedent for her administration.  

When she signed the wolf bill, Brown said she was committed to recovering the species in Oregon. She pledged to make sure that state regulators work with a wide variety of groups on wolf recovery. Her decision to sign the bill was praised by many rural legislators and agricultural groups who have often charged that environmental groups resort to lawsuits as a delaying tactic.  

Several environmental activists said they didn’t want to speak publicly about Brown’s record because they wanted to maintain good relations with the governor. Many acknowledge they have little alternative to Brown since the Oregon Republican Party is more closely allied with the natural resource industries.  

Moore, of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, said that the support of environmentalists is important to Brown. He noted that she not only faces an election in 2016, but another in 2018 if she wins.   

“This is a governor who has two elections back to back,” Moore said, “and having an uninspired part of her base is something that no politician would want to see.”

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will kill four Imnaha Pack wolves involved in five confirmed livestock attacks in the past month.

The “lethal take” order, adamantly opposed by a key conservation group, involves a Wallowa County pack with a long history of attacks on cattle and sheep and an equally significant influence on the growth of other wolf packs in the state.

ODFW wolf coordinator Russ Morgan said four wolves targeted for killing include an aging alpha male, OR-4, and an alpha female, OR-39, that has limped with a back leg injury for the past couple years. The male is nearly 10 years old, which Morgan said is “very old for a wolf in the wild.”

Morgan said it’s possible the male’s age and the female’s disability caused the wolves to turn on livestock instead of deer and elk. Two younger wolves, possibly yearlings, are believed to be traveling with them. The four appear to have split off from the rest of the Imnaha Pack, which numbered at least eight at the end of 2015.

In March alone, the group led by OR-4 has struck multiple times on private pastures in the Upper Swamp Creek area of Wallowa County. A calf was killed March 9; a sheep on March 25; two calves were attacked on March 26, with one dead and the other euthanized due to bite injuries; another calf was found dead March 28; and a sheep was found injured March 30, according to ODFW depredation reports.

Morgan said Imnaha Pack members commonly visit the area of the attacks but it’s unusual for them to remain there, as the four have this time. That suggests there’s been some change in the pack dynamics, he said.

Morgan said ODFW will shoot the wolves from the air or the ground, and intends to carry out the order immediately. He said the agency is following guidelines of the state’s wolf management plan, which is up for review this year.

He called the decision unfortunate, but said it is a necessary response to the pack’s chronic livestock attacks.

“The (wolf) plan is about conservation, but it’s also about management,” Morgan said.

ODFW has not killed any wolves since May 2011, when two Imnaha Pack members were dispatched for livestock attacks. The agency sought to kill two more pack members in September 2011, but conservation groups won a stay of the order from the Oregon Court of Appeals.

Oregon Wild, a Portland based conservation group with long involvement in wolf issues, opposes lethal control.

“ODFW should not be killing members of the Imnaha Pack, or any wolves for that matter, while the wolf plan remains under review and out of date,” Executive Director Sean Stevens said in a prepared statement.

“Given ambiguity in the current wolf plan, increased poaching, premature (state endangered species) delisting, and renewed calls from special interest groups for aggressive killing, the public has every reason to be concerned for Oregon’s recovering wolf population.”

Oregon Wild questioned whether the livestock producers involved have taken sufficient defensive measures against wolves.

Morgan said the sheep producer had three protection dogs with the sheep, checked the livestock three times a day, employed a range rider to haze the wolves and used midnight spotlighting. The cattle producer delayed pasture rotation to keep cattle closer to a public road, pastured yearlings with cows, frequently checked calving cattle and used range rider patrols as well, Morgan said in a news release.

The onset of lambing and calving season made more attacks a possibility, he said.

“Even more cattle and sheep will be on these private lands soon as calving and lambing season continues, increasing the risk for even more losses from this group of depredating wolves,” he said.

Cascadia Wildlands, a Eugene-based conservation group, said it was “deeply saddened” by the ODFW action but said it appears the state agency “has meaningfully deliberated over its decision.”

The group said it doesn’t condone using public taxpayer money to “kill wolves on behalf of private interests” but acknowledged the “situation appears to be escalating in Wallow County.” The group said lethal control is allowed under the state’s wolf plan.

The inclusion of OR-4 in the kill order is particularly difficult because he’s sired many wolf pups over the years and “fueled wolf recovery across the state,” said Josh Laughlin, executive director of Cascadia Wildlands. “His role and that of the other three wolves should be celebrated and remembered.”

The Oregon Cattlemen’s Association supports the kill order, acknowledging it is a “difficult” decision.

“It’s an unfair situation for the livestock owners and the wolves themselves,” said OCA wolf committee chair Todd Nash, a Wallowa County rancher.

“Wolves are doing what they naturally do, but have been put in a situation in Oregon where they are going to be in constant conflict with livestock and hunter’s game,” Nash said in a prepared statement.

Eliminating specific, problem animals so that multiple species can live together is sometimes necessary, Nash said.

The ODFW Commission this spring began review of the state’s wolf management plan, an effort that may take nine months.