BAKER CITY — The connection between rotting animal carcasses, ravens, wolves and sage grouse might not be obvious, but each of those disparate elements is involved in a pilot project that will start this winter in Baker County with a goal of protecting cattle and sage grouse from predators.

Its centerpiece is a carcass disposal station being built at Baker Sanitary Service’s landfill near Baker City.

The station will turn dead cattle, and potentially roadkill deer and elk, into a compost mixture that includes yard debris.

But the compost is merely a byproduct, said Morgan Solomon, coordinator for the Baker County Sage Grouse Local Implementation Team.

The project’s primary goals are to protect sage grouse eggs and chicks from hungry ravens, and to deter wolves from attacking livestock — in both cases, the idea is to pare the number of carcasses, which can attract both ravens and wolves.

“It’s very exciting,” Solomon said on Thursday, Oct. 19. “I have high hopes.”

So does Christina Witham, a Baker County commissioner.

“I do hope that it’s going to work in the landowners’ favor, and for the sage grouse,” Witham said. “I hope it’s a measurable difference in the end.”

Deterring predators, both canine and avian

The concept is simple.

Unburied animal carcasses, whether cattle, deer or elk, attract predators. The list of animals that feed on carrion include wolves and ravens.

The former pose a threat to cattle ranchers and other livestock owners.

For sage grouse, though, the risk comes from ravens, Solomon said.

Research has shown that ravens can be a significant predator of sage grouse eggs and chicks — eggs being especially vulnerable, Solomon said.

Sage grouse tend to stay in relatively small areas, and if ravens concentrate in those same areas, in part because they’re attracted by carcasses, the proximity can put sage grouse eggs and chicks in peril.

A survey in the spring of 2016 in some of Baker County’s best sage grouse habitat, mainly east of Baker City in the Keating and Virtue Flat areas, showed raven populations were high enough to potentially pose a threat to sage grouse.

That survey, done between April 1 and May 30, showed a preliminary population density estimate of 0.9 ravens per square kilometer. According to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, raven densities above 0.7 birds per square kilometer can pose a threat to sage grouse.

In 2021 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and ODFW started a two-year project to remove raven nests in and near sage grouse habitat in Baker County.

Taking more direct action — such as shooting ravens — is possible but would require federal approval because ravens are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

In the meantime, Solomon said, the carcass disposal station, by making it possible to pare the number of carcasses, could potentially help to reduce the density of ravens in areas where sage grouse are nesting in the spring.

Solomon applied for a $100,000 state grant that will be used to build the disposal station at the landfill.

The money is part of the six-year, $6.1 million grant from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board that Baker County received in 2019 to protect sage grouse and the bird’s habitat. The money is from Oregon Lottery revenue.

The team has used grant money for, among other things, negotiating agreements with private landowners to take actions, such as changing their livestock grazing plans, to protect sage grouse habitat.

The carcass disposal station is the latest project paid for through the state grant. Although that grant is the main funding source, Solomon emphasized the cooperative nature of the effort.

The Baker County Wolf Depredation Compensation Committee, which also receives money from the state, has contributed about $24,000. About half that money paid for a dump trailer that will haul carcasses, and the rest will compensate Baker Sanitary Service for operating the station, Solomon said.

She said Baker Sanitary Service has been an enthusiastic partner in the project.

Focusing on Keating area this winter

The pilot project, which will run from January through June of 2024, will focus on the Keating area, Solomon said.

That area was chosen because it includes sage grouse habitat and is also an area where wolves have attacked livestock many times over the past few years, she said.

Starting in January, ranchers or other residents who have a cattle or other carcass on their property can have it hauled away for no cost.

Eli Witham, a recently hired employee of the federal Wildlife Services agency, which seeks to control wolves and other predators, will collect carcasses and take them to the disposal station at the landfill. (He is Christina Witham’s son.)

Solomon said Wildlife Service has hired two employees, including Witham, to pursue nonlethal methods to reduce wolf depredation on livestock, including in Baker County.

Although the pilot project will focus on cattle carcasses, which can attract wolves, the long-term goal is to also have a way to transport deer and other dead wildlife to the landfill as well, Solomon said.

Wildlife carcasses can lure ravens as well as wolves and other predators.

Solomon is also working with researchers from Oregon State University to identify poles and other structures that serve as roosting sites for ravens, potentially contributing to their predation on sage grouse eggs.

Birds and politics

Sage grouse, which are about the size of a chicken, have been a candidate for federal protection for more than a decade.

In September 2015 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided not to list the bird as threatened or endangered.

But environmental groups have repeatedly asked the federal government to classify the bird as a threatened or endangered species, a decision that could curtail activities, including cattle grazing and motorized vehicle use on public land, that could degrade sage grouse habitat.

According to ODFW’s 2021 sage grouse report, the estimated population of the birds in Baker County (and a small part of southern Union County) in the spring of that year was 704. That’s a 42.6% increase from the estimate of 494 birds in spring 2020, but the report notes that this increase “was likely a result of the analysis methodology used to generate population estimates.”

The report states that sage grouse populations in the county have risen since 2014, including an average annual increase of 1.7% in the number of male grouse at “leks” — the open areas where the birds gather each spring and where the males perform the species’ elaborate courting ritual, which includes inflating air sacs in their breasts and fanning their tail feathers.

However, between 2005 and 2021, among leks that were surveyed in both years, the number of males present declined by 81%.

“This area has experienced a long-term population decline and has remained stagnant in recent years,” the report states.