Conservation Northwest

Homecoming for wildlife Jay Kehne Okanogan outreach associate, in our backyards jay@conservationnw.org Living with wildlife Home is where the heart is. If your heart loves wild places and open spaces and you choose to make your home there, you will eventually have some problems with your neighbors...that is, the wildlife that called it home before you arrived. The chance to see animals and enjoy them is part of the joy of visiting or living near wild open spaces. Who doesn't thrill at seeing a bobcat cross the trail or a deer with her fawns grazing at dusk, or hearing the slap of a beaver's tail? We inherently want to be near wildlife. The rub comes when wildlife gets to up close and personal with us, our pets, our livestock, or the things we grow or build. Whether it's bears in your garbage, elk in your haystack, skunks in your crawl space, deer in your garden, raccoons in your cat food, or rattlesnakes finding shade under your front porch, conflicts are a big part of living near wild places. So much so that the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) currently employs five fulltime wildlife conflict specialists, with three more expected to be hired soon. The WDFW online incident report detailed that by the end of July this year, there were already 126 reports with cougars and four with wolves in our state. Rich Beausoleil, WDFW's bear and cougar specialist and owner of a Karelian bear dog used to "haze" and scare bears away from homes near wildlands, explained, "Bear and cougar conflict with people almost always involves people management as well as wildlife management. For bears, we need the public's help in removing the 'Big 3' attractants—garbage, bird feeders and pet food, and fruit trees. If we could avoid giving bears a free lunch, our bear-human conflicts would be reduced by 90% in Washington," he said. "WDFW's website 'Living with Wildlife' has guidance on that." Beausoleil continued, "With cougars, we ask the public to not feed deer and elk or tolerate them in the backyard, because deer and elk are the cougar's primary prey. It's important to close off open spaces under porches (which could Hard choices We all like to think of the positive side of living in a state where we have wildlife to watch and enjoy. Unfortunately, living with wildlife can also mean living with some unpleasant wildlife experiences and making difficult decisions. After moving to Okanogan County, my wife and I began raising Katahdin meat sheep on our six irrigated acres, sheep we then sold, custom exempt, to friends all over the state. A 5-foot-tall sheep fence combined with an electric fence around our pasture kept our sheep in and local predators out. Then one night a deer tried to jump the fence, got its hind legs caught, and died with a broken leg. We were saddened but moved on with life. The next summer, a fawn running through the pasture ran into a fence post and broke its neck. I got to the bleating fawn and had to hold it while my wife retrieved a pistol so I could put it out of its misery. That moment changed my life and how I had planned to "live with wildlife." The sheep fence came down and now all that grazes our pasture are two old retired horses. While we didn't have to get out of the sheep business, we chose to make that change to adapt to the wildlife that also call our land their home. —Jay Kehne Black bear relocation and release WDFW give cougars refuge in winter), and keep goats and sheep inside at night (they are 90% of the livestock issues we have with cougars). It's all about preventing the problem from occurring in the first place. If you wait until you have a problem, you've waited one day too long." Most people understand that when we move into areas wildlife have always occupied, we have to learn some tolerance for wildlife, whether mule deer, crows, or more dangerous animals. It's a way to acknowledge we have entered "their" territory—their home too. And what about wolves? Here is a wild and potentially dangerous animal that, until recently, had been gone from Washington for decades. Wolves are returning now to a vastly changed landscape crisscrossed with roads where thousands of people live. Especially in rural communities, people are having to decide what kind of "homecoming" wolves will receive. Given the current growth rate of the wolf population in eastern Washington, it will be just a few years before rural residents on both sides of the Cascades will be experiencing this new predator back in "our world." Having this great species come home will take tolerance and changes from all of us. Wildlife in Washington is not something you see only in a zoo or high up in the wilderness. Here in Washington, many wildlife interactions occur right in our own backyards. Living with wildlife is really a mixture of having an appreciation and joy for all wildlife, while dealing with and adapting to the problems that can occur when we share our lives and homes with such a great variety of animal species. It can be a challenge. But in the end, it's why many of us live here and very much worth the effort. 18 Fall 2013conservationnw.org

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