USDA Wildlife Services District Supervisor Patrick Smith and Animal Damage Control Officer Nick Lulay describe progress and needs for the county's predator control program at the Grant County Court's Sept. 26 meeting.

Federal animal damage control agents spent more than 1,000 hours in Grant County over the past year, controlling a wide range of predators and other animals.

The work primarily took place on 75,155 acres of private land belonging to 25 participating landowners, according to a data report generated by USDA Wildlife Services.

Nick Lulay provided nearly all the predator control work. Traps, snares and firearms were used to kill 185 animals over the past year, including six badgers, 25 chipmunks, 114 coyotes, two marmots, four skunks, two rock doves and 32 common ravens.

In addition, 10 inactive barn swallow and cliff swallow nests were removed with hand tools.

The actions eliminated damage threats to alfalfa and other hayfields, pasture land, calves, goats and pets, the report stated.

Ravens posed a threat to calves, starlings threatened pets and ground squirrels and badgers caused damage to hayfields and pasture land, according to the report.

When asked about wolves, USDA Wildlife Services District Supervisor Pat Smith told the Grant County Court Sept. 26 that wolves were handled by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. His agency couldn’t touch wolves without going through an environmental assessment process, he said.

Grant County had no federal animal damage control officer for nearly two decades when successful lobbying by rancher Jim Dovenberg and others brought the program back in 2017.

It was too late in the fiscal year to fully fund the program, and the county budgeted $35,000 for the program with the stipulation that other funding would become available.

Dovenberg said he raised $12,000 from outside sources. When combined with $29,000 from the state and federal governments and $35,000 from the county, funding fell $24,000 short of the $100,000 estimated cost for a full-time program, he said.

An option was to operate the program at a three-quarters level, Dovenberg said, but that would mean raising about $11,000 next fiscal year to fill the gap left after federal, state and county funding was included.

Dovenberg said he was reluctant to request assistance from ranchers again to make up the shortfall. He said he looked into requesting assistance from ODFW or hunting organizations, but an option for the next fiscal year was to roll over funds left from the previous year.

Grant County Judge Scott Myers noted that county policy prohibited rolling over leftover funds to the next fiscal year. Waiving the policy for one program could create significant budget problems, he said. Myers recommended Wildlife Services aggressively spend allocated funding so nothing is left.

Commissioner Rob Raschio said he wanted to take a closer look at how the $100,000 figure for a full-time program was reached.

The funding gap needs to be filled before the next fiscal year starts July 1, Smith said.

Myers noted that some animal damage control actions takes place inside city jurisdictions and suggested Dovenberg contact the local city governments to see if they would assist with the funding.