Ranches in Nebraska and Idaho are seeking $376,000 in a lawsuit that accuses an Oregon cattle company of negligence that resulted in deformed calves.

The complaint claims that Riverside Ranch Cattle and affiliated bovine reproduction companies in Prairie City, Ore., sold cows that had consumed toxic lupine plants while pregnant.

Those “recipient cows” had been implanted with embryos from Hoffman Ranch in Nebraska and Colyer Herefords in Idaho, which later bought the pregnant animals from the Oregon company.

The arrangement was part of an “embryo transfer,” which allows cows with elite genetics to more quickly produce multiple offspring.

Under this process, hormone treatments cause a cow’s ovaries to generate several eggs at the same time, which are then fertilized with sperm. The resulting embryos are then “flushed” from its uterus and implanted into other cows that serve as surrogate mothers.

In this case, the plaintiffs allege that recipient cows were exposed to lupine during a critical point of their pregnancy while under the care of Riverside Ranch Cattle in the spring or summer of 2015 and 2016.

Alkaloids in lupine plants caused 23 of the 40 recipient cows bought by Hoffman Ranch to give birth to calves with defects such as crooked legs and malformed spines in 2015, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit alleges that lupine consumption similarly caused “crooked calf syndrome” in 45 of the 64 recipient cows bought by Colyer Herefords in 2016.

The plaintiffs claim that 22 calves died or had to be euthanized due to the syndrome.

Riverside Ranch Cattle was negligent in failing to prevent the recipient cows from eating the lupines, resulting in a breach of contract, the complaint said.

Hoffman Ranch seeks $133,800 and Colyer Herefords seeks $242,600 in damages for the lost value of deformed cows as well as reimbursement of fees for embryo transfer, pasture access and transportation. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of Oregon’s Pendleton division.

Capital Press was unable to reach the defendants for comment.

After finishing as national runner-up in the Young Farmers & Ranchers Discussion Meet at the 2018 American Farm Bureau Federation convention in Nashville, Jenny Freeborn arrived Thursday at Ag West Supply in Rickreall, Ore., to claim her prize.

Freeborn, who chairs the Oregon Farm Bureau’s Young Farmers & Ranchers Committee, received a Farmall 50A tractor donated by Case IH for her impressive showing at the event. Matt Mollard, territory sales manager for Case IH, was also on hand Thursday to give Freeborn the key.

“This is literally something I’ve been working on since I was 15 years old,” Freeborn said of competing in the national Discussion Meet. “It really is a dream come true for me. The fact that this actually happened is incredible.”

The Young Farmers & Ranchers Discussion Meet is a competitive event that simulates a committee meeting, with members swapping information and ideas on a predetermined topic. The list of topics for Freeborn included:

• Round 1 — With a growing demand for U.S. farm products abroad, how can agriculture overcome public skepticism of foreign trade to negotiate new trade agreements and open new world markets?

• Round 2 — How can Farm Bureau help members with increasing legal and regulatory obstacles so they can focus on farming and ranching?

• Sweet 16 — How can farmers and ranchers maintain their buying power with the continued trend of input supplier and provider consolidations?

• Final Four — Farmers are a shrinking percentage of the population. How can Farm Bureau help first-generation farmers and ranchers get started in agriculture?

The night before the Final Four, Freeborn said she couldn’t eat or sleep. Her sister, Kathy Hadley, who also made the Sweet 16 in 2016, stayed with her to provide support.

Above all else, Freeborn said she was thrilled to shine a spotlight on the good work being done by the Oregon Young Farmers & Ranchers Committee.

“That was the best part of it for me, knowing that I am bringing attention and notoriety to our state,” she said.

Freeborn, who lives on the family farm in Rickreall, was appointed chairwoman of the committee in December 2017. The group is specifically for Farm Bureau members between the ages of 16 and 35.

Martha Smith of Colorado won the discussion meet. Jared Knock of South Dakota placed third, and fourth place went to Matt Jakubik of Michigan.

A merged, automated and otherwise fine-tuned Baker & Murakami Produce heads into the home stretch of the Northwest onion marketing season bullish on its position in the industry.

Baker Packing Co. and Murakami Produce, both of Ontario, Ore., on July 1 took equal ownership in the new Baker & Murakami Produce Co. LLP. The company grows, packs and ships onions supplied to a full range of customers including foodservice, retail and food-processing segments.

“We have built a lot of momentum this year and we are in a very good position moving forward,” Baker & Murakami Chief Operating Officer Cameron Skeen said.

Combining two longtime Ontario businesses into one included substantial automation that streamlined operations and positioned the post-merger company to more effectively deal with the tight labor market, he said. Automation also led to better quality control.

Innovation in agriculture is positive at county, state and national levels, said Malheur County Economic Development Corp. Director Greg Smith, who is based in Ontario.

“While there may be short-term reductions in employment, it does lead to greater stability and profitability for the industry,” Smith said.

The former Baker Packing location at 153 S.E. First St. houses packing operations and the sales office. The former Murakami Produce facility includes the business office, and field and storage operations.

Following the merger and integration of the two large companies, Baker & Murakami has the same broad customer base but is more efficient and competitive, Skeen said. The company has better technology and more in-depth quality control that helps put a better onion in the hands of customers, he said.

“Our grading capabilities are much more extensive and sophisticated,” Skeen said. The new grading equipment evaluates characteristics of the inside and outside of an onion, and sorts by characteristics including color. The automated system also weighs, sizes and bags onions, and places them on pallets.

Automation and other internal changes helped Baker & Murakami streamline its workforce and in turn help the company deal with a persistent labor shortage.

Skeen did not release pre-merger or current employee totals. He said the merged company runs a single shift as the two independent predecessors each did. Employees added skills as Baker & Murakami moved ahead with new systems and processes.

Automation is the wave of the future, he said, and “we are trying to push ourselves for long-term success.”

It hasn’t been easy.

“This year has been a real learning curve with a lot of moving parts putting two companies together,” Skeen said.

The united company found the right operating structure, and the right equipment, to change and improve upon what the predecessor enterprises did for years, he said.

“It has been challenging in that regard, but at the same time we feel like we are ahead of where we thought we would be,” Skeen said. “I feel like we are definitely ahead of the curve for our area.”

Southeastern Oregon and southwestern Idaho field nearly 30 onion packing and shipping companies, he said. The Northwest marketing season, during which onions go from growers and packer-shippers to customers, typically ends in May.

Oregon State University Extension is one step closer to a new building for its community programs in Clackamas County.

County commissioners unanimously approved the new OSU Extension Education Center during a work session April 3. The 22,000-square-foot facility will be at the corner of Warner Milne and Beavercreek roads in Oregon City, within the Red Soils Business Park.

Mike Bondi, regional administrator for OSU Extension and director of the North Willamette Research and Extension Center, said the Education Center will provide much-needed space for programs to flourish — including 4-H, home gardening, forestry and family nutrition.

“It’s going to be a great resource for the community,” Bondi said.

But first, OSU Extension needs to secure building permits from Oregon City, a process that could take up to four months and several rounds of public comment. If all goes smoothly, Bondi said they hope to go out for bid for construction by the end of summer.

The project is expected to cost about $10 million. Bondi said the local OSU Extension Service District should have about $7 million set aside when the building is finished, and will raise the rest either through private fundraising or seek a bridge loan from the county.

Once completed, Bondi said the Education Center will give faculty and staff a big leg up in serving the public.

OSU Extension is celebrating 100 years in Clackamas County. The program has eight faculty and 16 support staff, and reaches between 50,000 and 70,000 people per year.

Yet since 1982, extension offices have been housed in a relatively old and cramped county building that has, at various times, also been used for the surveyor’s office and public health department. Bondi said that building was not adequate to meet their needs then, and it is not adequate to meet their needs now.

“Most everything is done away from the office,” he said of their current situation. “We have to go find space and move all our stuff. That’s how we’ve operated for the last 35 years.”

Voters formed the Clackamas County Extension and 4-H Service District in 2008, which collects local taxes to support OSU Extension programs. It was then that Bondi said a new building became a serious possibility.

“We took that seriously and started putting money aside,” he said.

By 2014, OSU Extension began designing what the facility would look like. What they came up with was a two-story building with a 150-seat meeting room, test kitchen, outdoor greenhouse and show gardens and a plant diagnostic testing lab for Master Gardeners.

“We’re pretty excited about what the possibilities for the building will be,” Bondi said.

The Education Center will also be a showcase for the region’s wood products and sustainable forestry practices, Bondi said. With more than 3,000 private forestland owners across the county, he said forestry is a big driver of the local economy.

“It’s going to be jewel in our crown, as well as the community’s crown,” Bondi said.

Oregon wildlife officials counted at least 124 wolves at the end of 2017, an 11 percent increase over the year end total for 2016, according to the latest annual report released Thursday.

The survey, which is conducted by the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife, is not a true population estimate but documents the minimum number of wolves across the state based on verified evidence such as visual sightings, tracks and photographs.

ODFW will present an overview of the findings at the next Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting April 20 in Astoria.

“The wolf population continues to grow and expand its range in Oregon,” said Roblyn Brown, ODFW wolf program coordinator. “This year, we also documented resident wolves in the northern part of Oregon’s Cascade Mountains for the first time.”

Most wolves in Oregon remain clustered around the northeast corner of the state, though several packs and known wolf territory can also be found in Wasco, Klamath and Lake counties. Statewide, Oregon now has 12 wolf packs, 11 of which were successful breeding pairs, meaning that at least two adults and two pups survived to the end of the year.

Wolf reproduction was the highest recorded in 2017 since the species returned to Oregon, with pups being born in 18 groups — a 50 percent increase over 2016. Though they did not meet the definition of a breeding pair, reproduction was confirmed in the Chesnimnus, Harl Butte, Meacham, North Emily and Shamrock packs, as well as the OR-30 and OR-52 pairs.

Gov. Kate Brown said she is encouraged by the continued recovery of Oregon wolves, though ongoing conflicts with poachers and livestock remain troublesome.

“Despite this good news, ongoing issues of poaching and livestock depredation must be carefully considered as we explore more effective management and conservation practices,” Brown said.

Though ODFW removed wolves from the state endangered species list in 2015, it remains illegal to shoot a wolf except in limited circumstances, such as in defense of human life or those caught in the act of chasing livestock. Wolves remain federally protected west of highways 395, 78 and 95.

ODFW reported four cases of wolves killed illegally in 2017. Three cases are still under investigation. The fourth, in Union County, involved a wildlife trapper who shot a wolf he found in one of his traps. David Sanders Jr., 58, pleaded guilty to one count of using unbranded traps, and was sentenced to 24 months bench probation, 100 hours of community service and a $7,500 fine.

The Union County District Attorney’s Office agreed to dismiss one count of illegally shooting a special status game mammal, though Sanders did have his hunting and trapping license suspended for 36 months and agreed to pay an additional $1,000 penalty to ODFW.

In all, 13 wolf deaths were recorded in 2017 — 12 of which were caused by humans. ODFW issued lethal take permits that resulted in four wolves being shot from the Harl Butte pack in Wallowa County, and one from the Meacham pack in Umatilla County, to try and curb livestock depredations. Lethal take is allowed under Phase III of the Wolf Management and Conservation Plan in Eastern Oregon.

Meanwhile, OR-48 from the Shamrock pack was unintentionally killed by an M-44 cyanide trap that had been set by USDA Wildlife Services on private land; a pup from the Ruckel Ridge pack was killed by a livestock protection dog; and OR-30 was shot by an elk hunter in Union County who claimed he was acting in self-defense. The hunter, 38-year-old Brian Scott, was not charged with a crime.

Sean Stevens, executive director of the Portland-based environmental group Oregon Wild, was sharply critical of poachers and ODFW killing wolves. Most recently, the agency approved killing two more animals from the Pine Creek pack in Baker County for preying on cattle.

“The wolf population is stagnant because poachers and ODFW agents are killing more wolves — this despite the fact that ODFW admits livestock depredations are down from last year,” Stevens said. “It demands accountability from an agency that insists on killing more wolves every year.”

The annual wolf report shows confirmed livestock depredations decreased from 24 in 2016 to 17 in 2017. Those cases involved 11 calves, one llama, one alpaca and 23 domestic fowl.

Quinn Read, Northwest director for the group Defenders of Wildlife, said the evidence shows Oregonians can co-exist with wolves.

“ODFW should be looking at how to support these successes, rather than encouraging reckless lethal removal protocols,” Read said.

Ranchers, however, say they will need more support from the state to ensure they can protect their businesses and their livelihood.

George Rollins, a Baker County rancher and co-chairman of the wolf committee for the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, said the latest depredations by the Pine Creek pack resulted in three dead calves, four wounded and another three missing.

“The people taking the economic loss and the emotional stresses are the producers,” Rollins said. “It gets very tiresome. They feel like they’re not being supported. Nobody’s listening to them.”

As the population of wolves increases and continues to move west, Rollins predicts there will be more wolf-livestock conflicts in the future. He said ODFW needs to give more control to local authorities to handle so-called “chronic depredators.”

OCA is also seeking to tie state funding for compensating ranchers directly to the rising wolf population, Rollins said, to make sure they can afford non-lethal tools such as hiring range riders to haze wolves.

One such bill was proposed during the 2017 short legislative session by Rep. Greg Barreto (R-Cove), but died in committee.

“If we want to manage the wolf, we need to make sure we can fund it properly,” Rollins said.

ODFW is still working to pass an overdue five-year update of its wolf management and conservation plan. The Fish and Wildlife Commission decided in January to do more stakeholder outreach and try to reach a greater consensus. No date for adoption has been scheduled.

ROSEBURG, Ore. — Unique landowner-funded predator damage control districts in Douglas and Coos counties in southwestern Oregon raised $97,000 in their first year.

The money was used to help fund Wildlife Services during the fiscal year of July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018. Wildlife Services provides specialists who deal with predator animals that impact livestock, damage timber or are public safety problems.

Some 286 landowners with a total of 110,253 acres invested $34,000 in the Douglas County Predator Control District. The majority of the landowners are ranchers who want protection for their livestock from coyotes and cougars.

There were 109 landowners with 196,870 acres who participated in the Coos County Predator Damage Control District, contributing $63,000. The majority of these acres are timberlands with large companies such as Weyerhaeuser wanting protection against elk pulling up seedlings and bears peeling bark and girdling trees.

Both counties are now accepting renewals and new members for their respective districts for the next fiscal year beginning July 1. The deadline to sign up for the Coos district is May 1. The signup deadline for the Douglas district is May 15.

The fees will be the same as the current fiscal year: A set rate of 32 cents an acre for Coos County and an adjustable rate that averages 41 cents for Douglas County.

“Agency funding has diminished to manage problem animals that are under the management of (Oregon Department of) Fish and Wildlife,” said Jim Carr, chairman of the advisory board for the Coos district. “This is landowners paying the toll to take care of a state problem. It’s participation by landowners to help protect their property.”

The predator control district idea was formulated by cattle and sheep ranchers Ron Hjort and Dan Dawson of Douglas County. The two got the support of their county’s commissioners and then took their idea to the Oregon State legislature. Legislation was then written, giving each of Oregon’s counties the opportunity to create a predator control district. Douglas and Coos counties were the first to do so.

Hjort and Dawson explained the district was needed because Douglas County’s funding of Wildlife Services was decreasing due to reduced federal timber harvest and receipts.

“Funding by the county is up in the air year to year,” Hjort said.

“The county told us if we didn’t come up with some kind of solution, we wouldn’t have a program,” Dawson said. “We had to come up with our portion, to have a program, so we could leverage our money with matching funds.”

Douglas County has three wildlife specialists (trappers) at a budget of $230,000. Coos County has two specialists and a budget of $180,000.

In addition to the respective district and county funding, the two counties receive approximately $13,000 per trapper from the USDA Wildlife Services, $6,760 per trapper from the Oregon Department of Agriculture, $6,340 per trapper from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and $1,354 per trapper from furbearer fees.

While Douglas County is continuing to contribute more than just its fee for its owned timberlands, about $120,000, Coos County has been decreasing its funding more rapidly and will soon only be participating in the district as the landowner of 15,000 acres of timberland for a fee of about $5,000 annually.

Carr said two trappers can “barely keep up with the issues in Coos County.” He anticipates the Wildlife Services program in the county having to be cut back to just one trapper and a part-timer in the near future due to decreases in funding.

Carr expects membership in the district will increase when people discover it will be more difficult to get help when they call in a problem.

In Douglas County, Hjort said the district is not financing the whole Wildlife Services program, “but it’s a good start.” He said the addition of more landowners and more acreage in the district could decrease the per-acre rate. He said there is enough funding to support three trappers in the county for the next fiscal year.

Hjort explained the trappers protect between $80 million and $90 million worth of livestock in Douglas County. He added there is additional value in the timber that is protected.

Dawson said the value of confirmed livestock kills by predators in the last six months is $70,000.

“Imagine what it would look like without a Wildlife Services program,” he said. “I don’t know how you would stay in business. It would be rough. It would turn us into confinement operations. That doesn’t fit our natural grass operations in this county.

“And emotionally, it is hard to take all those kills,” he added.

Carr said predator control needs to be taken more seriously by the Oregon legislature. Dawson and Hjort said the eventual arrival of wolves in Western Oregon will add to the need for predator control. They said rural landowners are the first line of defense against predators before the animals close in on more populated areas.

“Legislators from populated areas don’t see and understand the problem,” Carr said. “This needs to be address at the state level, but those folks continue to reduce the funding to control the problem animals that Fish and Wildlife are charged with managing.”

For more information on the Douglas district, contact Hjort at 541-459-0778. For the Coos district, contact Carr at 541-982-5188.

For the second time, environmental groups are challenging a decision in Columbia County, Ore., to rezone 837 acres of high-value farmland for industrial use at Port Westward near Clatskanie.

The proposal would nearly double the size of the industrial park, owned by the Port of St. Helens along the lower Columbia River. Port Westward is already home to three Portland General Electric natural gas power plants and the Columbia Pacific Bio-Refinery.

Columbia County commissioners voted 2-1 to approve the port’s rezone application in 2017, allowing businesses to process, store and ship natural gas, wood products and other bulk commodities at the property.

Opponents, however, argue the industrial zone will not only disrupt neighboring farms, but flies in the face of state land use laws intended to protect high-value farms. Columbia Riverkeeper, along with 1000 Friends of Oregon, filed an appeal March 14 to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals, or LUBA, seeking to overturn the county’s ruling.

At the heart of the issue is whether such industrial development is compatible with local agriculture. Jasmine Zimmer-Stucky, senior organizer with Columbia Riverkeeper, says the answer is no.

“Industrial development is not a compatible use for farmers, especially farms that are growing sensitive crops,” Zimmer-Stucky said.

Most soils in the rezoned area are Class II and III, which according to the Oregon Department of Agriculture are considered high-value farmland under state law. Irrigation canals and ditches are also interconnected along the low-lying diked lands, Zimmer-Stucky said, meaning that an industrial spill or runoff could spread quickly to nearby mint, blueberry, cattle and poplar tree farms.

Jim Hoffman, owner of Hopville Farms, said water quality is a top priority for his blueberry farm, and the community at large. He said he remains disappointed with the county’s decision to open farmland to “industrial polluters.”

Tracy Prescott-MacGregor, who with her husband, Scott, farms on Erickson Dike Road near Port Westward, said she is also concerned about a potential spill and toxic byproducts of industrial business — especially fossil fuels development.

“My biggest concern is that almost all industry, especially fossil fuel industry, creates byproducts,” Prescott-MacGregor said. “There’s also a potential for spillage of any of these caustic materials. It wouldn’t take very long before the soils would be contaminated.”

If that happens, Prescott-MacGregor said she and her husband would likely have to leave the area. They came in 1999 from Portland to grow their own food, including a large garden, goats, chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys.

“The soils out here are pretty fantastic,” she said. “We are lucky farmers.”

The Port of St. Helens bought the land in 2010, and Paula Miranda, the port’s property and development manager, said they have been approached by a number of companies in recent years interested in the deep water access on the Columbia River.

County commissioners first approved the rezone in 2014, though it was appealed to LUBA and ultimately remanded back to the county. While the port’s latest application does not mention any specific project, Miranda said they will continue to work with farmers to mitigate impacts on their land. She added there are no plans to develop crude oil facilities on the property.

“I personally feel pretty confident that whatever we bring here, we’ll do it the proper way,” Miranda said.

Margaret Magruder, a county commissioner, said expanding Port Westward would provide a real boost to the local economy, and any industrial business looking to site there would be subject to further conditions to protect their neighbors.

“Just because it gets rezoned doesn’t mean that any business that comes along is going to get to site,” Magruder said.

But Scott Hilgenberg, a land use fellow at the nonprofit Crag Law Center in Portland, said the proposal does not justify rezoning agricultural land under Oregon statewide planning goals.

In particular, Statewide Planning Goal 3 aims to preserve and maintain high-value farmland. Hilgenberg, who is representing Columbia Riverkeeper, said the port’s application does not reasonably describe why it needs a Goal 3 exception.

“The concern is the more industrial development that occurs here, the more risk the agricultural community is going to face,” Hilgenberg said. “It’s a question about what the future vision of Columbia County is going to be, and what products does it want to focus on.”

LUBA has not yet scheduled a hearing in the case.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Police say three bald eagles have been found shot to death near Albany, Oregon.

The Statesman Journal reports that the birds were discovered March 16 by an Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife Division trooper. Gunshot wounds were found on each bird.

An examination and X-ray by a veterinarian revealed evidence of dense metal in each of the eagles.

Bald eagles are federally protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

Oregon State Police officials said the eagles were most likely killed shortly before the day they were found. No suspects have been identified.

BAKER CITY, Ore. (AP) — Oregon wildlife officials will allow a cattle rancher in remote northeastern Oregon to kill any two wolves — including a pregnant one — from a new pack that’s been attacking calves.

The wolves in the new pack, dubbed the Pine Creek Pack, killed three calves and injured four more over a two-day period, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said Tuesday. The pack roams along the Idaho state line and has eight members, including a breeding male and female and five yearlings.

The female is believed to be pregnant and could give birth in as little as a week, the agency said.

Wolf advocates blasted the decision and called it cruel to single out the pack when the breeding female was pregnant.

“We should not be killing wolves, especially a pregnant female, in the midst of a poaching epidemic, and using a wolf management plan that expired three years ago,” said Oregon Wild executive director Sean Stevens.

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission in December decided late last year to delay a vote on a long-awaited update to the state’s wolf management plan that had been scheduled for January.

There are believed to be about 112 wolves in Oregon, mostly in remote and mountainous areas in the northeastern corner of the state.

In this instance, a rancher in Baker County requested the right to kill the entire Pine Creek pack, but ODFW set the limit at two animals.

The rancher has until May 4 to kill up to two wolves and Oregon wildlife officials can also kill them if they encounter them.

Ranchers must prove they have tried non-lethal methods to scare the wolves away from their herds and must document livestock killings by wolves to get approval to kill them.

They must also not have any bone piles or carcasses in the range that would attract wolves.

ODFW said the rancher had used pens, range riders and had fired weapons in the air to scare off wolves.

Data taken from the wolves’ collars show the animals “have a pattern of routinely using this property at this time of year and many producers are getting ready to place cows on the neighboring pastures soon.”

Wolves returned to Oregon about two decades ago after being wiped out by bounty hunters in the state 70 years ago.

BAKER CITY, Ore. (AP) — Oregon wildlife officials will allow a cattle rancher to kill two wolves from a new pack in Baker County along the Idaho border.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said Tuesday the wolves had killed three calves and hurt four more over a two-day period.

The rancher had requested the right to kill the entire pack, but ODFW set the limit at two animals.

The rancher has until May 4 to kill up to two wolves and Oregon wildlife officials can also kill them.

The wolves were designated as a new pack after a winter count showed it has eight wolves.

Wolf advocates criticized ODFW’s decision and said it was inhumane to allow the killing when the breeding female in the pack is pregnant.

A federal judge has ruled the U.S. Bureau of Land Management violated environmental law by rounding up wild horses in Eastern Oregon after a 2016 fire.

Friends of Animals, a nonprofit group that filed a lawsuit against BLM, has sought to overturn the agency’s approval of the roundup, which could lead to some horses being returned to the Three Fingers Management Area in Malheur County.

The BLM initially conducted an environmental assessment on gathering and removing wild horses from the 62,500-acre area in 2011, but then decided on a smaller-scale roundup in 2016.

Shortly before the operation was set to begin in August 2016, however, the Cherry Road wildfire ignited in the area, burning about 15,000 acres of pasture — roughly half the range used by wild horses in the management area.

While the planned roundup was canceled due to the fire, BLM soon decided to conduct an “emergency gather” due to the lost forage and limited water sources for the animals.

Under the emergency gather, the BLM approved removing 150 horses — up from about 50 before the fire occurred — leaving about 80 to 120 in the area.

Friends of Animals alleged the emergency action “went far beyond what was necessary to control the immediate impacts” of the fire without a proper review under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.

Instead of permanently removing the horses, BLM could have examined “relocation, temporary removal, fencing and providing supplemental water” to mitigate the fire’s immediate effects, the group argued.

U.S. District Judge Michael Simon has found that BLM’s emergency gather went further than necessary to counter the fire’s immediate impacts, requiring additional analysis under NEPA.

“Its stated rationale for conducting the gather was not just to control the immediate effects of the fire, but to ensure survival of the horses over the next two seasons, and aid in the habitat’s recovery,” he said.

The BLM claimed the emergency action met that requirement because it was based on reviews conducted for the previous roundup decisions and other plans for the region.

However, the judge disagreed that BLM took the necessary “hard look” at the emergency gather’s environmental consequences, since the agency didn’t analyze the effects of the fire itself or why it was necessary to remove more horses.

“The Emergency Gather Decision does not discuss whether there are any new circumstances, information, or effects not previously analyzed since the earlier NEPA documents,” he said.

While the approval was “arbitrary and capricious” contrary to the law, the judge said he will separately deliberate on the appropriate remedy for this violation.

Lucinda Bach, attorney for the government in this case, said she couldn’t comment on the ruling. Capital Press was unable to reach an attorney from Friends of Animals for comment.

HALFWAY, Ore. — Baker County ranchers submitted a request April 9 asking the state to kill wolves preying on cattle in the low hills surrounding Halfway.

The request asks that collared wolf OR-50, involved in repeated kills in Wallowa County last year, and seven additional wolves traveling with him, be killed to quell chronic cattle loss to wolves in northeastern Baker County.

According to George Rollins, Oregon Cattlemen’s Association wolf committee co-chaiman, rancher Chad Delcurto turned out 130 cow and calf pairs into a private pasture on Wednesday, April 4. The cattle were held overnight in a corral so the mothers and calves could find each other in a safe enclosure.

On Thursday, the cow/calf pairs were driven up from the corrals to higher ground. Rollins said the cattle were held to make sure they paired up again. There were no wolf sightings that afternoon, yet the next day, an employee of Pine Valley Ranch was scouting for a hunting trip and saw wolves chasing and attacking Delcurto’s cattle.

“He (ranch employee) ran to them, video taped them and then contacted everyone he could get in touch with Chad,” Rollins said.

Delcurto assembled a crew on horseback to check the cattle. The horseback riders rode into the middle of wolves among the cattle and attempted to chase the predators away.

While checking the herd the horseback crew found two dead calves approximately one mile apart from each other. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife staff in Baker County as well as Baker County Sheriff Travis Ash and Deputy Rob Adams performed an investigation.

“A picture was taken of a cow standing over her dead calf with wolves 20 feet away,” Rollins said.

Rollins said another crew was assembled on April 7to gather the entire herd and determine if there were any further losses. During the gathering the horseback riders discovered wolves attacking another calf.

“Riders harassed the wolves (five wolves were visible at the site) and drove them over the ridge west of where the attack took place,” Rollins said.

The calf had significant bites with visible open wounds on both rear legs. Rollins said it was unable to travel and was left behind with his mother who was also showing lameness. At the corrals, 130 cows were counted and 124 calves, including the pair left on the hillside. Four of those calves showed visible wounds on their rear legs and hindquarters.

The calf left on the hillside was later euthanized and the carcass investigated. Again, wolves were seen in close proximity during the investigation.

“So at this point Chad had three calves confirmed killed, four confirmed injured and three missing in 48 hours,” Rollins said. “If you total that up, sold as 550 pound calves, that’s a $10,000 loss.”

According to Michelle Dennehy, of Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, OR-50 moved into the Pine Creek Wildlife Unit in Baker County last fall and joined up with a female wolf, OR-36.

Rollins said there have been regular sightings of wolves within 400 yards of the Pine Valley Ranch shop outside of Halfway where he recently retired as manager. Fish and Wildlife biologists have repeatedly hazed wolves away from the ranch headquarters.

“The ODFW guys have done a remarkable job hazing — they were concerned there would be depredations in the spring time,” Rollins said. “They ran wolves probably 20 miles with helicopters back into the forest to the Imnaha River again and that lasted about 36 hours.”

In the next few days Rollins said eight more producers are getting set to turn out cattle in the low hills where Delcurto’s cattle are grazing. Convinced the wolves will continue attacking livestock, Rollins said he anticipates a decision from the state on the kill request this week.

Heavy precipitation across much of Idaho’s midsection during March bodes well for water users such as Galen Lee, who farms between Caldwell, Idaho, and Ontario, Ore.

“We haven’t had to make a change for the current year or in recent years,” said Lee, who operates Sunnyside Farm LLC near New Plymouth, Idaho.

Strong recent precipitation coupled with ample carry-over storage in reservoirs in the wake of the high-water 2017 help ensure many Idaho farmers can move forward as planned.

March precipitation totaled about 165 percent of the 30-year average across a swath of central Idaho encompassing the Boise River system to the west and the Big Wood, Little Wood, Big Lost and Little Lost rivers to the east, said Ron Abramovich, a water supply specialist with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Boise.

These basins are now up to about 75 percent of their average snowpack compared to 45 to 70 percent a month earlier.

Snowpack totaled 50 to 80 percent of the 30-year average for March across southern Idaho including the Owyhee drainage to the west, the Bear River Basin to the east, and the Bruneau, Salmon Falls and Oakley basins from west to east in the middle.

Owyhee was on the low end of the range, and the Bear River Basin was on the high end. Abramovich said streamflow forecasts across this area call for 40 to 70 percent of normal runoff.

“Water supplies will be adequate this year across Idaho due to carryover storage and the snowpack we currently have in the mountains,” Abramovich said.

Lee said the Black Canyon Reservoir, in the Emmett-Horseshoe Bend area, is well-supplied. That benefits Sunnyside and other farms served by associated canal companies.

“If there were a predicted shortage, we would make a change. We would have to,” said Lee, board member and past president of the American Sugarbeet Growers Association. For example, he would consider planting more wheat and less corn, which uses more water.

He said crops suited to year-to-year changes include wheat, corn and even sugar beets, subject to growers’ minimum targets. Crops that stay in the field long-term — and offer less flexibility — include mint, alfalfa and asparagus.

Sunnyside Farm grows about 500 acres of corn and 229 acres of beets. Other acreage totals include peppermint at 200, alfalfa hay at 180 and asparagus at 35. Sunnyside also operates a 280-head dairy and small feedlot.

Going forward, “we are in pretty good shape,” Lee said. “We have had some water this year.”

The Idaho Water Supply Outlook Report for April 1 is expected to be available by April 6 at https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/id/snow/.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Forget about bike-share stations in Chicago or pedestrian walkways in Oakland. That’s so Obama-era.

In the Trump administration, a popular $500 million transportation grant program is focused more on projects in rural areas that turned out for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. That means more road and rail projects in GOP strongholds such as Idaho, North Dakota, and Oklahoma, and fewer “greenways,” “complete streets” and bike lanes.

The latest round of these grants has nothing for New York City, Los Angeles or Chicago. Money in those Democratic heavy states went instead to projects in Trump-friendly regions: repainting a bridge in New York’s North Country, contributing to a highway project in Modesto, California, and upgrading an interstate highway in southern Illinois.

It’s a refocusing from the priorities of the previous administration, which gave most of these TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grants to urban areas represented by President Barack Obama’s Democratic allies on Capitol Hill.

“More than 64 percent of this round of TIGER funding was awarded to rural projects, a historic number that demonstrates this Administration’s commitment to supporting the country’s rural communities,” the Transportation Department said in a release announcing the grants last month.

“I was very pleased,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, when asked about the focus on rural areas. Maine won $10.8 million to help repair three rural bridges on routes critical to the state’s timber industry.

The program was established under Obama’s 2009 economic recovery bill. The grants, distributed at the discretion of the administration, are just a small fraction of the overall federal transportation dollars when compared with more than $50 billion distributed annually to states by formula from the highway trust fund.

Trump has twice targeted the grant program for elimination, only to sign a huge spending bill into law last month that tripled its budget to $1.5 billion.

Questions arose during the Obama administration about political favoritism when grants consistently went in greater numbers to congressional districts represented by Democrats. For example, in 2013, about two-thirds of TIGER money was awarded to such districts.

One of those grants went to help Florida International University construct a pedestrian bridge over a busy road. The structure collapsed last month, killing six people.

Grants are awarded according to a competitive process that analyzes criteria such as economic benefits, safety, state of disrepair, and the environmental benefits of projects. The Government Accountability Office looked into the program a few years ago at the request of then-Sen. David Vitter, R-La., and found that projects with lower grades often won out over top-rated projects.

Of the 41 grants announced by the Trump administration, 25 totaling $271 million were awarded to projects in congressional districts represented by Republicans. Districts represented by Democrats garnered 14 projects and $190 million. Two grants worth $25 million went to projects spanning district lines.

That’s a reversal from the Obama administration, which in its last year in office provided just $102 million in grants to rural areas. That was just above the 20 percent minimum required by the law that established the program.

The Obama administration funded numerous urban projects centered on pedestrian walkways and bike trails. More than one-third of Obama’s final round of grants featured bike-friendly projects. A 2016 grant, for instance, helped pay for a “multi-modal greenway” in Lexington, Kentucky, to integrate a network of bike and pedestrian trails.

The Trump grants contain just a handful of such projects, including a pedestrian and bike trail along the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia and preservation of a historic railroad pedestrian bridge in Mill City, Oregon.

The Trump administration is focused more on economic development projects such as port upgrades in Alabama, Baltimore and New Orleans. Some $25 million would help Arizona ease congestion from a busy U.S.-Mexico port of entry in Nogales.

Other projects include reopening an inactive freight rail line in Idaho, easing traffic in Big Sky, a tourist destination in Montana, and contributing to a highway bypass around Lincoln, Nebraska.

A port project in Alabama would build a “roll on/roll off” facility that would serve several automobile manufacturing plants. Fort Smith, Arkansas, would benefit from repair projects for three deteriorating freight rail bridges. An additional $10 million would replace rail lines servicing farmers and energy producers in southern Illinois.

While Oregon’s mountain snowpack is in much better shape than it was just two months ago, it is likely too little, too late.

April is usually the time when snow peaks around the state, though the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service reports all basins are still behind on snowpack, with most measuring between 40 and 70 percent of normal levels.

The news does not bode well for stream flows or drought conditions heading into summer, said Scott Oviatt, NRCS snow survey supervisor.

“Snow and cooler weather in March was not enough to bring snowpack levels up to normal,” Oviatt said. “Mountain snowpack peaked well below normal this winter at most locations in Oregon.”

Areas closest to the Columbia River seemed to fare best over the winter, with the Hood River, Sandy and Lower Deschutes basins at 91 percent of normal. The Umatilla, Walla Walla and Willow basins also reached 91 percent of normal.

Southern Oregon, and especially southeast Oregon, are in much rougher shape. The Malheur and Owyhee basins both received less than half their usual snowpack, and the Klamath Basin is sitting at just 47 percent. Gov. Kate Brown has already declared a drought in Klamath County.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is not forecasting much in terms of relief. The next three months will more than likely see average to above-average temperatures across the state, along with below-average precipitation.

“Our best hope is a cool spring that helps to prolong the snow we have further into the season,” Oviatt said.

The NRCS released its April stream flow forecast on Friday. Not surprisingly, it predicts that rivers closest to the Columbia River are expected to have average to near average flows. Others may be “well below normal,” depending on their location.

“Water users that are not able to take advantage of reservoir storage will likely experience significantly reduced water supplies this summer, especially in the southern and southeastern basins of Oregon,” the report states. “The governor declared a drought emergency in Klamath County in March and more counties may follow.”

Summer stream flows could be as low as 30-60 percent of average in the Klamath, Harney, Crooked, Owyhee, Malheur, Lake and Goose Lake basins. The silver lining for Eastern Oregon irrigators is the status of reservoirs, which are storing close to normal amounts of water. Once again, the Umatilla, Walla Walla and Willow basins are at the top of the heap with reservoirs at a collective 123 percent of normal.

The lowest reservoir levels can be found in the Rogue and Umpqua basins of western Oregon, at 88 percent of average.

EUGENE, Ore. — The growing consumer appetite for organic food has caused a chain reaction through the agriculture industry, all the way through to farm input suppliers.

Rising interest in organic farming has spurred the creation of new products and companies seeking to supply those growers with organic fertilizers, pesticides and other goods.

Over the past 20 years, the number of products listed for organic use by the Organic Materials Review Institute has increased from fewer than 200 to more than 6,000.

OMRI, a nonprofit based in Eugene, Ore., is charged with ensuring those crop, livestock and processing products comply with organic standards established by the USDA.

In just the last year, the number of products listed by OMRI has shot up 20 percent.

There is some confusion about the institute’s role in the organic industry, said Peggy Miars, its executive director.

Companies occasionally try to convince OMRI to approve a product even though it contains a prohibited substance, not understanding the organization doesn’t make such calls, she said.

OMRI doesn’t decide whether it’s appropriate for a substance to be allowed in organic production — that responsibility falls to the USDA’s National Organic Program and an advisory group of industry stakeholders, the National Organic Standards Board.

“We never advocate for or against a particular substance,” said Miars.

Instead, the institute evaluates the formulations of branded products to determine if they’re composed of substances that are permitted by USDA.

When a substance is proposed for inclusion in organic production, the USDA may also hire the institute to research the material’s impacts on the environment and human health.

However, OMRI doesn’t make recommendations and stays out of controversies about approving or prohibiting substances, said Miars.

“One reason OMRI is respected is because we are neutral,” she said. “We don’t go one way or another.”

The vast majority of products listed by OMRI — 86 percent — pertain to growing crops, and most of those are fertilizers and soil amendments.

The remaining 14 percent are fairly evenly split between livestock products and processing products, such as those used to make cheese and wine.

In recent years, there have been a lot of new innovations with anaerobic digestate. This liquid and solid waste comes from anaerobic digesters, such as those that generate power from dairy manure, said Kelsey McKee, OMRI’s review program and quality director.

OMRI’s role is to ensure the digestate byproduct doesn’t contain substances that are prohibited in organic production, she said.

Input suppliers are also developing new products containing specific beneficial microbes and mycorrhizal fungi, McKee said.

These soil amendments go beyond general compost: Certain bacteria and fungi can reduce pressure from pathogens or maximize nutrient availability, she said.

OMRI determines whether these microorganisms are genetically engineered, which is excluded from organic farming, or are grown in synthetic media that aren’t allowed.

“Different microbes can have different roles,” McKee said. “We are looking at where are they getting it, how are they growing it.”

Before OMRI was founded two decades ago, organic certifiers such as Oregon Tilth and California Certified Organic Farmers would review branded products for compliance with organic standards.

As the work became increasingly time-consuming, these and other organic groups chipped in financially to launch OMRI, which would be dedicated to this function.

With the climbing number of products proposed for listing, the institute has been swamped with work.

When Miars was hired seven years ago, the organization received about 40 applications a month. It’s now up to 130.

Since the organization wasn’t willing to compromise on thoroughness, the backlog has lengthened OMRI’s review periods, Miars said. “We had a reputation for being really slow.”

A hiring spree that increased OMRI’s staff by 50 percent over the past two years has reduced the wait time. In late 2016, the median review process took seven months, but it’s now down to two months.

OMRI is also automating its application process to require less data-entry from employees, which the institute hopes will further improve efficiency.

“We are relying more and more on technology,” Miars said.

Cutting down on mind-numbing tasks serves another worthwhile function: Making jobs at OMRI more rewarding.

Recruiting and training educated workers costs money, so the nonprofit must focus on retaining them, she said. “It’s good to see people want to stay with OMRI and grow with us.”

To that end, the institute encourages its employees to give presentations and write articles about obscure materials-related dilemmas.

For example, can paper bags with colored ink be used in organic compost? The answer is yes — the ink is considered an unavoidable environmental contaminant.

The institute has also set its sights beyond the U.S.

In 2012, OMRI started a program to review materials that are compliant with Canada’s organic standards, and it’s looking to replicate the effort in Mexico.

Currently, organic materials review in Mexico is conducted by organic certifiers, Miars said. “There are certifiers and growers in Mexico who would love it if we could launch that program tomorrow.”

Organic Materials Review Institute

Executive director: Peggy Miars

Founded: 1997

Headquarters: Eugene, Ore.

Employees: 56

Function: Reviewing branded products for compliance with organic standards.

Listed products: More than 6,000

Product categories: More than 86 percent are crop-related, 7 percent are processing-related and nearly 7 percent are livestock-related.

Product origins: 70 percent are from the U.S., 13 percent are from Mexico, 7 percent are from Canada, and 10 percent are from 36 other countries.

Bear Branch Farms, a small family-run farm near Stayton, Ore., will host its third annual open farm day Saturday, April 21, from noon to 3 p.m. The public is invited for tours and spend the afternoon.

“It just gets people onto the farm, so kids and families can get connected to where their food comes from,” said Janis Newsom, who owns the farm with her husband, Nate. “They can go walk the fields, walk around the greenhouses, pet and feed the animals, ask gardening questions, the whole gamut.”

Bear Branch Farms grows more than 100 different fruits and vegetables, which it sells on a Community Supported Agriculture model, or CSA, where customers pay up front for “shares” of the harvest.

Newsom said they will be raffling a half-price CSA membership during the event. Foodology, a mobile kitchen from nearby Stayton, will also be on site. Newsom said families can bring chairs if they would like to picnic at the farm.

Bear Branch Farms is at 40929 Huntley Road SE. For more information, call the farm at 503-769-3025.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — A state agency has refused to provide a county sheriff and prosecutor in Oregon with a list of medical marijuana grow sites, marking the latest friction over marijuana between local and state officials.

On March 13, Oregon Health Authority official Carole Yann told Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel and Sheriff Shane Nelson that the law doesn’t permit the agency to provide the list.

Instead, local law enforcement — on a case-by-case basis — can verify the registration status of a site through a data base or call the medical marijuana program managed by Yann, she said.

On Thursday, Hummel and Nelson challenged that justification and said they need the list to help identify illegal grow sites.

“I respectfully suggest that providing Sheriff Nelson and I with the addresses of medical marijuana grow sites does not run afoul of Oregon statutory law,” Hummel wrote to Yann in a letter that was also signed by Nelson.

On Tuesday, officials in another county sued the state in federal court, asserting that Oregon laws that made pot legal are pre-empted by a federal law that criminalizes it.

The Josephine County Board of Commissioners in December tried to ban or restrict commercial pot farming on rural residential lots, but the state Land Use Board of Appeals put the restrictions on hold.

The county has petitioned the Oregon Court of Appeals and sued in federal court.

The cases illustrate a continuing struggle by local, state and federal officials over legalization of marijuana in Oregon and other states.

In ballot measures, Oregon voters legalized medical marijuana in 1998 and recreational cannabis in 2014. Some jurisdictions in Oregon were allowed to opt out of allowing recreational marijuana businesses.

Deschutes County, in the high desert and mountains of Central Oregon, decided in 2016 to allow them after previously banning them in unincorporated areas.

But county commissioners said this week they may try to prohibit new marijuana businesses until the rules are better enforced.

Hummel and Nelson complained in their Feb. 7 letter to the health authority, which regulates medical marijuana, that local law enforcement often can’t tell whether medical marijuana grow sites are legal or illegal because the agency hasn’t provided a list of authorized sites. They asked for a list of licensed medical growers.

Hummel said Thursday that state law doesn’t prohibit the health authority from providing the list. He asked Yann to specify if the Legislature prohibits it, or if the health authority chose to require law enforcement to make case-by-case requests for information.

In their letter, Hummel and Nelson included a thumb drive containing every address in Deschutes County. They told Yann to verify whether each is a registered marijuana grow site.

Local farmers and ranchers from the Klamath Basin in Southern Oregon are hitting the road for San Francisco to witness a pivotal court hearing that may determine when they can finally start irrigating their crops this year.

It is yet another chapter in the ongoing dispute to balance water rights for agriculture and endangered fish along the Klamath River.

Water users are especially nervous now heading into summer, as Oregon Gov. Kate Brown already declared a drought emergency in Klamath County on March 13. Snowpack is just 51 percent of normal across the basin, and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service predicts stream flows between April and September may range anywhere from just 24 to 58 percent of average.

Or, as Scott White of the Klamath Water Users Association put it, “This is not a fun time down here.”

“People have just been trying to get by,” said White, KWUA executive director. “Anxiety is through the roof in this basin right now.”

Yet the Bureau of Reclamation, which administers the Klamath Project, still has not been able to announce a water allocation or irrigation start date for the season. That’s because the agency is hung up on a previous court ruling that requires 50,000 acre-feet of stored water for in-stream flows to wash away a deadly parasite that attacks coho salmon, known as C. shasta.

The injunction, filed Feb. 8, 2017 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, essentially calls for three types of flows to combat C. shasta. The first is a “flushing flow” of 6,030 cubic feet per second for 72 hours, which must be completed every year before the end of April. There is also a “deep flushing flow,” which is required every other year but not for 2018.

The last is what’s known as “dilution flows,” which are contingent on the presence of C. shasta spores in the river. If water tests higher than five spores per liter, that triggers the release of 3,000 cubic feet per second for seven days below Iron Gate Dam to cleanse the stream. If that doesn’t work, water releases are ramped up to 4,000 cubic feet per second for another seven days.

Dilution flows are no longer needed once 80 percent of the salmon have migrated out to the Pacific Ocean, but White said that date can be difficult to pin down, and is making it difficult for water users to plan for the summer. Releases also cannot interfere with water needed for endangered sucker fish that inhabit Upper Klamath Lake.

The Yurok Tribe, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, Institute for Fisheries Resources, Klamath Riverkeeper and the Hoopa Valley Tribe sought the injunction to protect juvenile coho after several years of deadly C. shasta outbreak.

The KWUA, along with Klamath Irrigation District, Sunnyside Irrigation District, Ben Duvall Klamath Drainage District and Pine Grove Irrigation District, recently filed a motion to stay the court’s injunction. U.S. District Judge William Orrick will hold a hearing Wednesday, April 11 to consider the argument.

White said the water users association has reserved a bus with 45 seats to take farmers and ranchers down to the hearing in a show of support. It is possible Judge Orrick may rule from the bench that very day, and White said he is optimistic about the outcome.

“That’s really all we have to live on, is hope and faith that the judge will see things our way,” he said.

The Bureau of Reclamation has proposed an irrigation start date of April 19 and water allocation of 252,000 acre-feet — roughly 36 percent less than full allocation for the project.

Glen Spain, Northwest regional director for the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association, said they sympathize with basin farmers, but unless something is done to stop the onslaught of C. shasta, it may push Klamath salmon to extinction.

“For us, it’s an existential problem,” Spain said. “We don’t exist as salmon fishermen without salmon.”

The PCFFA represents most of the West Coast commercial fishing industry. Like farmers, Spain said they are helping families to put food on the table. Unfortunately, with an over-allocated river, he said, the demand for water is turning good people, and valuable industries, against one another.

“We need that water in the river. Farmers understandably need it on their crops. And there is not enough to go around,” Spain said.

The late start to irrigation season is already a killer for farmers and ranchers struggling to turn a profit, White said. He hopes this ordeal will demonstrate these types of issues are best worked out at the local level, instead of handed down by the court.

“Not only is it expensive, but it’s never an ideal outcome,” White said.

Anyone interested in taking the bus to San Francisco can contact the KWUA office at 541-883-6100.

PORTLAND — Environmentalists are urging a federal judge not to throw out a lawsuit they filed 15 years ago alleging that grazing harms the threatened bull trout in Oregon’s Malheur National Forest.

Last year, a federal magistrate judge found the Oregon Natural Desert Association and Center for Biological Diversity had failed to prove that livestock grazing along two rivers in the forest is to blame for the protected species’ decline.

The plaintiffs have objected to his recommended dismissal of their complaint, which was originally filed more than 15 years ago.

During oral arguments held April 5 in Portland, the environmental groups asked U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman to instead rule that grazing authorizations along the Malheur and North Fork Malheur rivers violated federal laws.

Fewer than 50 bull trout now inhabit each of the waterways, which together should support about 2,000 of the fish, said Mac Lacy, attorney for the plaintiffs.

The U.S. Forest Service has authorized livestock grazing on seven allotments covering tens of thousands of acres without analyzing the site-specific effects as required by law, Lacy said.

In recommending the lawsuit’s dismissal, the magistrate judge incorrectly found that attainment of “riparian management objectives” for the fish can be measured at the “watershed or landscape scale,” the plaintiffs claimed.

The agency cannot decide it has met these objectives based on “habitat indicators” that don’t mirror reality while ignoring actual measurements that show stream conditions are worsening, Lacy said.

Grazing must be suspended if it prevents a “near natural rate of recovery” under the National Forest Management Act, while the Forest Service faces a similar obligation under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, according to the plaintiffs.

“It’s not just a non-degradation requirement,” Lacy said. “It’s an enhancement requirement.”

Stephen Odell, attorney for the government, argued that it’s up to the Forest Service to decide how best to measure compliance with recovery strategies for the fish.

The agency has relied on the most relevant data collected over thousands of hours, he said. “It’s extremely rigorous.”

Riparian management objectives are “dream stream” benchmarks that would exist under ideal conditions and are meant to measure progress, Odell said.

However, the Forest Service doesn’t have to attain these standards to comply with its recovery strategies for the bull trout, he said.

Odell also revived an argument against the environmentalist lawsuit that was rejected by the magistrate judge.

The plaintiffs have challenged more than 100 agency decisions regarding grazing, which amounts to an improper attempt to change the Forest Service’s entire grazing program, he said. Such “programmatic” revisions are meant to occur during rule-making or in Congress, not in federal court.

Instead of finding faults specific to each of the actions, the plaintiffs make the same “blanket assertion” to challenge all of them, Odell said.