'It's much like a thief in the night coming and taking your property'

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Story Published: Jun 30, 2009 at 4:20 PM PST

By Addison Taylor KVAL News

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HALSEY, Ore. --- It’s lambing season on Pynch Farms in Halsey. Joel Pynch is shipping more than a hundred lambs to their final destination in Colorado.

“You have gone though this whole process of keeping the ewe (female sheep) for a year,” Pynch said.

In other words, it takes a long time to grow a lamb.

But recent actions may cause a new problem to plague the industry: predators.

“It is much like a thief in the night coming in and taking your property,” Pynch said.

In Linn County the latest budget cuts may remove the full time predator trapper, the federal employee who controls predator populations like coyotes and cougars.

Pynch said without this employee, livestock losses could be staggering. Up to 10 percent of a flock could be lost a year.

Linn County Commissioner John Lindsey said they have done their best to keep the program and that predators are a huge problem for farms in Linn County. But the county and federal government shared the cost of the trapper, and in recent years, the federal government paid less and the county more. This year, the county just can’t afford it.

He added that the program will not completely go away but that it will be reduced.

But back on Pynch Farms, Pynch said that the reduction will also reduce flock numbers.

“Before we got the dogs, we were losing 20 to 40 lambs a year,” he said.

Pynch uses two guard dogs to protect his sheep, but dogs only work for farmers whose land is all in one plac, and whose flock doesn’t move

For larger farms, “It’s not uncommon for those people to lose 200-300 lambs a year,” Pynch said. “Those farmers, need a trapper.”

Pynch and other local livestock producers in the area have volunteered to raise funds covering the counties part of the trapper bill. They submitted that plan to the board of commissioners, who will meet next week.

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