Name: Klamath Wolf-Livestock Conflict Reduction Workshop
Start: 2023-08-23T00:00:00-06:00
End: 2023-08-24T23:59:59-06:00
Location: Klamath Event Center

Wildlife Services and Western Landowners Alliance are hosting a two-day interactive wolf-livestock conflict reduction workshop at the Klamath Event Center on August 23rd. Presenters include livestock producers and wildlife management agency staff from MN, MT, WY, ID, CA and OR.

Please join us for this incredible opportunity for peer-to-peer conversations and to hear how folks from the West and beyond are working to keep livestock production profitable and viable on lands that are shared with carnivores.

Please RSVP HERE. **Meals will be provided and admission is free.

Two-day Schedule: Klamath Agenda

Featured Speakers:

Paul Wolf, USDA Wildlife Services
Paul Wolf is a Wildlife Biologist and the SW District Supervisor with the Oregon Wildlife Services program in Roseburg, Oregon. Paul started his career working with wolves early in his college days working with Dr. David Mech, a world–renowned wolf expert working in Northern Minnesota. Paul began working for the Minnesota Wildlife Services program as a seasonal wolf trapper in 1998.

Throughout Paul’s career with Wildlife Services, he has held positions as an Airport Biologist and a Wildlife Disease Biologist for the Minnesota Program. In October of 2015, Paul was offered a position as the SW District Supervisor in Oregon and manages several projects from gophers and bears to protect timber, county predator damage management programs, several airport wildlife hazard management programs, a predator control project to protect a coastal shorebird and he was instrumental in standing up the Oregon non-lethal (conflict prevention) program to help ranchers mitigate wolf-livestock conflicts. Paul has a B.S. degree in wildlife from the University of Minnesota. When not working, he enjoys spending time with his family and brewing beer with friends.

Elizabeth Willy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Elizabeth Willy (rhymes with Billy) is the Wolf Coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific Southwest Region. She works out of the Klamath Falls field office and has been in this position since 2011 when wolves first returned to the Upper Klamath Basin. She has over 20 years of experience with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in northern California and southern Oregon.

Bre Owens, Western Landowners Alliance
Bre lives in Los Molinos, California with her sons Will and Clyde. She runs a small cattle operation based in Tehama County, California utilizing mostly leased private and public lands. Bre grew up in Northern California on a cow-calf ranch and attended Chico State and Colorado State University-Fort Collins. She is motivated by a love for the agriculture industry…for the people, land and livestock that are a part of it. She is inspired by the current conversations and opportunities in highlighting the linkages between the agriculture and conservation communities. Ag at its best is conservation at its best.

Prior to joining WLA, Bre was engaged with the Conflict Reduction Consortium, Women in Ranching, and the On Land editorial board. In previous roles, she served as the Project Development Specialist for the Chico State Center for Regenerative Ag and as the Senior Range Ecologist and Program Coordinator for the Rangeland Watershed Initiative, a partnership program with NRCS. She has been a mentor through Quivira’s New Agrarian Program and is a California Certified Rangeland Manager. She sits on the Board of Directors for Holistic Management International and serves as the Board Chair of the California Rangeland Conservation Coalition.

Cat Urbigkit, Paradise Sheep Company
Cat lives and works on a range sheep and cattle outfit in large carnivore country of western Wyoming. Cat will talk about the “Unimaginable Change” her family experienced when wolves moved onto the ranch, and she’ll highlight the numerous deterrence measures they use to minimize losses to wolves. She’ll share her personal experiences dealing with a chronically depredating wolf pack that wasn’t wearing radio collars, which led to the development of a monitoring system for the ranch to keep tabs on wolves and other predators. Cat is an author of nonfiction books about agriculture and life on these shared rangelands and owns and edits The Shepherd, a national sheep industry magazine.

John Hart, USDA Wildlife Services

John is a Wildlife Biologist / District Supervisor with the USDA – Wildlife Services program in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. John has worked with Wildlife Services since 1989, most of that time being involved with wolf damage management. John also handles a variety of wildlife damage issues related to beaver, CWD, cormorants and airports. John has a B.S. degree in wildlife from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point. When not working he enjoys spending time outdoors with his family.

Erik Kalsta, Kalsta Ranch & Western Landowners Alliance
Erik lives and ranches with his wife Jami on their sheep and cattle ranch along the Big Hole River in southwestern Montana. Now coming into its 5^th generation, 125+ years in the same family, it is a monument to stubbornness that some might call sustainability. Erik’s love of ranching encompasses far more than cattle or sheep, it extends to the all the wildlife that inhabit or migrate through the property and the vegetation that makes those interactions possible. He is passionate about maintaining the open spaces provided by working lands and the habitat they provide.

To support his ranching and education habit Erik spent 10 years working in commercial fisheries in Alaska. That time further informed him that he needed to be proactive to be successful in dealing with wildlife management issues, which is a big part of what he has been doing for the last 25 years.

Megan Cross, National Wildlife Research Center
Megan is a Supervisory Social Scientist at Colorado State University, where she works with the Human Dimensions Unit at the USDA National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, CO. Her research focuses on the social dimensions of wildlife management, especially human-wildlife conflict, predator management, and perceptions of risk. She received her Ph.D. in Fisheries and Wildlife from Michigan State University and her MS in Natural Resource Science and Management from the University of Minnesota. Her postdoctoral research was on the wolf management preferences of Michigan stakeholders.

Dr. Dustin Ranglack, National Wildlife Research Center
Dustin is the Predator Project and Utah Field Station Leader for the USDA APHIS Wildlife Services National Wildlife Research Center, which focuses on research and tool development for reducing human-wildlife conflict with predators. This often has a strong focus on protecting livestock from predators. Previously, he was an Associate Professor at the University of Nebraska teaching wildlife management and researching bison ecology, conservation, and management. His talk will focus on some of the current and future work in non-lethal conflict reduction for wolves.

For questions, reach out to Ellie Gage, ellie@westernlandowners.org

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