This year, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Turn-in-Poachers (TIP) went to a new level. It is the Fall hunting season that brings up poaching of big game animals. But it can include the illegal take of game or fish, trespassing, littering, theft, destroying of property and road closure violations, and damaging habitats affects present and future generations of wildlife, impacts communities and the economy, and creates enforcement challenges. People who "work" the system and falsely apply for resident license or tags are not legally hunting or angling and are considered poachers.

The TIP program offers rewards that pays or offers preference points for tag drawings when information leads to an arrest or issuance of a citation for the illegal killing or taking of wildlife or illegally obtaining Oregon hunting or angling licenses or tags.

Oregon State Police are investigating the unlawful killing of a wolf in the Keating Wildlife Management Unit on or about September 24, 2020, and posted it on the TIP offering a reward. This incident occurred north west of New Bridge, OR in the Skull Creek drainage of the Wallowa Whitman National Forest.

After a lone gray wolf from Idaho’s experimental population entered Oregon back in 1999, gray wolves have continued to disperse into Oregon from Idaho and have established breeding populations. Livestock producers have been affected financially due to direct losses of livestock from wolf depredations.

HB 3560 went into effect in 2011, which directed the Oregon Department of Agriculture to establish and implement a wolf depredation compensation and financial assistance grant program.

The wildfires the last couple of years has increased wolf and cougar activity looking for food. Hunters report wolf packs moving in making it dangerous to hunt, and more bow hunters are carrying pistols for self-protection. This past week KOIN reported on a cougar spotting in Albany near a home by a young man. ODFW reports that more wolves and new locations is now a common occurrence for Oregon as the population has been growing for over a decade.

Those caught illegally hunting animals like wolves, black bears or cougars pay $7,500 in fines. These funds go toward the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to pay for the loss of a resource.

According to the Democrat leadership, it’s perfectly okay to riot and loot your business to provide for family needs, but if you’re unlucky in a hunting tag draw, they don’t have the same empathy. Or if you’re threatened by a predator, animal rights come first over your safety. Is it time to look at the threat of wolves to us and the threat to other animals?

In the meantime, you can report a Wildlife and/or Habitat Law Violation or Suspicious Activity: TIP Hotline: 1-800-452-7888 or *OSP(677).


--Donna Bleiler

Post Date: 2020-10-15 06:50:06

Last Update: 2020-10-14 20:03:32