AR-News: (U.S.) DoW stops paying for killed sheep

[Mary Finelli]

DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE BACKS AWAY FROM PROMISE
Cow-Calf Weekly, Clint Peck, May 21, 2004


The environmental group, Defenders of Wildlife (DOW), says it will no longer 
pay for sheep kills in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. This is a slap in 
the face to sheep and cattle ranchers across the West who had been told for 
years that livestock losses to grizzly bears and wolves would be covered by 
wildlife and environmental groups, says Elaine Allestad, Big Timber, MT. She 
and husband, Lawrence, are the last holdouts in the wilderness where they 
run about 1,200 ewes and their lambs each summer.

While many ranchers say the program is burdensome and doesn't pay all the 
costs associated with wildlife predation, supporters of the reimbursement 
program have praised DOW for "putting its money where its mouth is." But, 
ranchers have long thought environmentalists were playing a waiting game 
with them -- while raking in public relations points. DOW's northern Rockies 
representative, Minette Johnson, admits the group doesn't want to encourage 
people to bring sheep into prime grizzly bear habitat.

"It's apparent that sheep and grizzly bears don't mix," she says, pointing 
to positions taken by federal bear managers that call for phasing out sheep 
allotments in key grizzly bear habitat when allotment holders are willing. 
"We want to promote that approach."

Allestad says her husband's family has grazed sheep in the Absaroka- 
Beartooth Wilderness, which lies north of Yellowstone National Park, since 
the 1930s when thousands of other sheep grazed the remote mountain ranges.

In 2002, grizzlies killed 60 of the Allestads' sheep, but DOW paid for only 
19 animals, Allested says. The group has paid the Allestads $5,300 for 
losses since 1999.

Environmental groups have talked about buying the grazing allotment, but the 
money offered isn't enough to pay for adequate summer pasture for the sheep, 
Allestad says.

It's a tactic increasingly favored by environmental groups. Last year, a 
coalition of wildlife conservation organizations paid $250,000 to a Wyoming 
rancher to buy out a cattle-grazing permit. The deal ended decades of 
livestock grazing on 137square miles of the Bridger-Teton National Forest 
just outside Grand Teton National Park. The area hosts a resident wolf pack, 
threatened lynx and bald eagles.

Last year, environmentalists pushed to "retire" a sheep grazing allotment on 
national forest near Grand Teton National Park. The 16,370-acre 
Badger/Jackpine allotment northeast of Driggs, ID, was set aside for grizzly 
bear habitat in the Yellowstone ecosystem. DOW worked with the allotment 
permittees and representatives from the Caribou-Targhee National Forest and 
Wyoming Game and Fish Department for two years to reach the agreement.

Meanwhile, bear management specialists for the Montana Department of Fish, 
Wildlife and Parks have said wildlife needs to take precedence over 
livestock in wilderness areas.

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