I’ve gotten phone calls and emails about Wildlife Services’s first day of “control” of wolves in West Central Idaho.
This is second hand — Wildlife Services [WS] didn’t contact me.
I heard they killed two of the Lava Ridge pack and might have hit two in the Lick Creek Pack and one in the Gold Fork pack. I also heard they were “sloppy,” but no details why except that they often wound animals and leave them to die rather than land and finish the job. If WS wants to email me or issue a news release, that would be good.
At their request, I took down their phone numbers today that were contained in the earlier post.
Note: comments on this post are now closed
Comments
It would seem that WS is out of control. Perhaps it is also Idaho Fish and Game. Since IFG took over day-to-day management of wolves, it seems that there is quite a bit more “control.” All one has to do is look at the FWS Wolf Weekly to see that Idaho control is far and away more intensive than Montana and Wyoming combined
Rick Hammel
I’m not sure this is correct.
I’d have to do some searching, but I think more wolves are killed in Wyoming relative to the wolf population size.
“…they often wound animals and leave them to die rather than…finish the job…”
I can’t help but find that just a little hypocritcal- there have been animals found by the dozens that were “maimed” and torn up by wolves and left to die, with no finishing “the job….” I know the old excuse already: wolves don’t do that! They must have been disturbed and scared away from the prey, they don’t torture the animals they attack and leave them!!!!!
The old civilizations really had something in Eye for an Eye.
I would say that wolves never leave prey to die, although some get away.
The complaint here (from what I have heard through the grapevine) is that WS is unprofessional and they are bad shots.
An Eye for an Eye style of livestock or wildlife management is just plain retrograde, as you said “the old civilizations.” Ralph Maughan
I can’t agree with you more Erin. Of course, the wolf conservationist do not see it that way so how dare you say that about the ‘big bad wolf’. Only if they had animals of their own then would they truly understand!
If you’re grazing your animals on public land, best be ready to consider the opinions of the public.
Ralph,
I was not looking at percentages. I would suspect that the Wyoming count is a higher percentage of wolves “controlled. ” Whatever the count, it is too much. While the Northern Rockies wolf population is listed as experimental, non-essential, the wolf is still classified as Threatened under the ESA. I think that the Recovery Plan is due for a revision. It is 10 years old and most federal plans are revisited in 10 to 15 years to make them reflect current trends.
Rick Hammel
“I would say that wolves never leave prey to die…” I don’t see how you can possibly believe that if you spend so much time in the mountains. I spend several weeks every year in the copper basin area and have seen several kills (yes, with tracks around and no, not havind happened within the past few hours). I suppose now you’ll say the wolves must have been feeding and coming back. I guess it’s perspective??? I just can’t fathom how you can say that. But oh well
Wolves don’t abandon their prey unless something makes them move. They also remember where each carcass is, and in Yellowstone where they are closely watched, wolves have been observed to come back as long as several months later and look for remains at the site of an old kill.
It is likely that wolves kill domestic sheep and leave them. I would suppose that is because sheep are so easy to kill and act so much like prey.
The wolves in Copper Basin, Idaho have been repeatedly controlled this year, so partially eaten abandoned carcasses might be the result.
It has been demonstated that if a carcass has been moved by people, the wolves that killed it sometimes won’t touch it again. . . the result of evolution given a hundred years of poisoning?
If a carcass has been around a long time, there is usually no way to tell how it got here (died or was kiled by?). So how did you know the carcasses were wolf kills?
I’ve seen numerous instances where wolves have made a kill and left a large amount of the carcass. But, after several days of observation I have seen wolves come back to the kill repeatedly either to eat the carcass on the spot or to carry portions of it away presumably to a den for the pups and alpha female to eat. I have also seen numerous road killed deer that have been eaten by wolves that were pretty ripe by the time the wolves found them. Doesn’t that kind of fly in the face of the “big bad killer wolf theory”?
You’d think that wolves just kill and maim for fun by the way the wolf haters talk. It’s not true. Killing elk and deer is a risky thing for wolves and there have been numerous instances where they have been killed or severely injured by their prey, especially during certain times of the year when the prey is in good condition. Wolves are regularly killed in Yellowstone by bison even when the bison are at their worst condition during March.
How many wolves have you seen Erin? Have you ever watched them for long periods of time or do you just get your information from the spew of Ron Gillet? It seems to me that you have a pre-formed opinion about wolves that you don’t want to let go of even when evidence to the contrary is presented to you.
I just find that WS is not being very professional in their “control”. There is a long list of unprofessional behavior attributed to some of those in the agency and they happen to be dealing with a species that is still listed as an endagered species. Most of them, with a few very notable excepptions that are marginalized, don’t want to participate in proactive solutions to livestock problems and would rather just go out and kill things instead of trying to put even a smidgeon of effort into non-lethal techniques to avoid conflicts.
Orphaning of pups, taking bad shots and leaving injured, and possibly dangerous (not to mention suffering), wolves, and setting snares in wolf country that are not checked often enough to avoid killing a wolf are some of the examples of what has been going on during the past year. How much are we paying for this unprofessional behavior and how much of it could be used for more productive management of wolves and other wildlife?
Here is something from the latest IDFG press release. Note the figures about livestock losses from other causes than wolves and judge for yourself how large the “wolf problem” is.
Wolf Report: Update
The Lick Creek wolf pack is in trouble; over the past three weeks, pack members have killed 43 sheep.
Most recently, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services confirmed on September 13 that pack members had killed nine ewes near Bear Saddle on Rapid River. Pack members around the end of August killed 34 sheep. The producer still is missing many more that are presumed dead.
Idaho Fish and Game has authorized the removal of up to five un-collared wolves from the Lick Creek pack.
Elsewhere in the past week, other wolves killed 20 sheep and injured five more. State officials have authorized the removal 13 wolves. Wildlife Services has killed three wolves so far, and planned on removing up to 10 more, including up to five Lick Creek pack members.
Between January 1 and September 15, federal and state agents have killed 26 wolves in Idaho, and another nine wolves have been killed by ranchers under the 10j rule. A total of 19 cattle and more than 120 sheep have been confirmed killed so far this year.
But those are only a small part of the domestic livestock that die in Idaho every year. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics, most livestock in Idaho die from causes other than predators. And most of those killed by predators are killed or eaten by coyotes, which killed 70 percent of the 7,400 lambs lost to predators in 2005.
The National Agricultural Statistics Service reports that in 2005, coyotes killed about 1,000 sheep and about 5,100 lambs. Domestic dogs killed about 300 lambs—the same number as killed by wolves. Both also killed about 200 sheep each. Bears killed about 500 lambs and 400 sheep, while mountain lions killed 400 lambs and about 100 sheep.
Overall, predators accounted for about 32 percent of 23,000 lamb deaths, and about 28 percent of about 9,000 sheep deaths—other causes included weather, disease, lambing complications and old age, the Statistics Service reports.
Also in 2005, coyotes killed about 600 calves while mountain lions and bobcats accounted for another 200, and other predators combined took 1,100. The total of about 2,000 calves killed by predators represents about 3 percent of all deaths that year. The biggest killers of calves were digestive and respiratory problems, with about 20,000 each.
About 500 adult cows were killed by predators, or about 1 percent of total losses in 2005, the Statistics Service reports.
When gray wolves were reintroduced in Idaho in 1995, federal officials pledged to control wolves that preyed on livestock. Wolf control actions are in no danger of jeopardizing wolf recovery in Idaho. Since their reintroduction in 1995 and 1996, the wolf population in Idaho has grown to about 650 wolves, according to preliminary new population estimates. Biologists estimate 74 packs, at least 31 potential breeding pairs, now live in Idaho, and 176 pups were born in Idaho this year. The estimated growth rate would be about 20 percent.
The Fish and Wildlife Service considers the wolf recovered in the northern Rocky Mountains. Federal officials are working on a proposal to remove wolves from the endangered species list in Idaho and Montana separately from Wyoming, which would be a break from policy of considering wolves in all three states together.
Thanks for posting this. I had been meaning to do a short story on it, but I ran out of time. Ralph Maughan
P.S. Dont forget about the bear that killed 130 sheep near Palisades Reservoir last month. That’s more sheep killed by one bear than all of the wolves in Idaho (120 sheep) have killed all year.
Yesterday 6 antelope were found poached/slaughtered and dumped near Horseshoe Bend, including a fawn. Very little of the meat was taken. It barely made the news. Think if this had been wolves, it would banner headlines on the front page of the paper and the “erin’s” of Idaho would be having a field day. Where is all the outrage from the “sportsmen” of Idaho?
Buffaloed
Do you have a link to that Bear / sheep story?
Tim do you have a link? It would be nice if folks would add links when making notes, esp controversial?
Most hunters would be highly offended and turn in the perp, in my experience… They may get busted yet.
I am truly amazed at you folks who consider yourselves to be true wolf conservationists. All you can do is blame the rancher for not rotating his cattle periodically and checking on his cattle often, or you blame the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, or you blame Wildlife Services. Yet you have no consideration for those whose livelihood depend on the use of public lands to raise an animal to market. Maybe if someone whom you do not know was to take $1000 of your hard earned money from time to time then you might have more sympathy for those who rely on getting their animals to market in their prime. If all you can do is point fingers and place blame then why don’t you do something constructinve and run for a political office to where you truly can make an impact?
A couple points, Laird.
Public land grazing is highly subsidized. Where can you get private grazing land for less than $2 an AUM? You can’t.
A justificiation commonly given for the rock bottom public land grazing fees is the presence of predatory animals that makes the grazing land less valuable.
Defenders of Wildlife compensates livestock owners for all verified losses. They compenstate them 50% for likely losses.
Idaho has a special fund courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer to compensate them for purely speculative losses, not covered by Defenders
Therefore, your statement about $1000 of hard earned money is not really relevant. If a wolf takes their ewe, they are in luck. If a coyote does, then they only have the rock bottom grazing fee for compensation. Either way, it’s hard to shed a tear.
If they are hit by a sudden snowstorm, that’s a different matter. Ralph Maughan
Recently a truckload of sheep in Blaine County headed to market crashed and killed a whole lot of lambs. Did Wildlife Services go after the driver?
There have been many instances of where flocks of sheep have been on the highway and vehicles have run into them, killing dozens of lambs and ewes. Did Wildlife Services respond?
Men, women and children have died when cattle have been on Idaho roads and vehicles have run into them. Who pays? The family of the deceased! They have to pay the owner of the bovine. This is the open range law. What a crock.
The owners of the sheep flocks that had wolf depredations ought to attempt to make an effort to take care of their animals, or get off of OUR public lands.
And yes, I’ve owned livestock, but they were always close at hand and CARED FOR. Where else in the world outside of the American West do people ignore their animals from June until October — and then complain that some are missing and hold their hand out for a gov’t payment?
Here is the news release about the antelope:
http://idfg.idaho.gov/apps/releases/view.cfm?NewsID=3479
Here is the news release with the bear incident, it is kind of buried in there but it is in the bottom ot the 9th paragraph.
http://idfg.idaho.gov/apps/releases/view.cfm?NewsID=3456
Ralph,
You have proven my case in point that those who never own livestock will never understand or have any regard for those who do. Either way, compensating livestock at 50% of face value is hardly equitable compensation. That is like saying that every once in a while your employer will only give you 50% of your paycheck? How ridiculous is that? Since $1000 is hardly relevant then how about sending me a $1000 check and see if you miss it.
Laird,
You seem to think you are the only person here who knows about livestock and losses.
My son-in-law and daughter bought land. On it they raise cattle. The land is fenced. Evey year they lose at least one animal. It is a hole in their pocket.
They never lose them to predators, and no one compensates them for any of their loses
Livestock grazing, both on public and private land is taking a lot more than money out of all our pockets. We pay for public lands subsidies and we pay for the loss of biodiversity that the livestock industry creates. We pay in the loss of lives of buffalo, wolves and every other species that has been and is being displaced in order to graze cattle and to grow the massive amounts of grain we grow to feed cattle (around 80% of all the grain we grow in this country.)
We put more energy into raising, processing and shipping cattle then we’ll ever get out of it. It takes 20,000 litres of water per pound of beef, and if you think water is a renewable resource, you’ve got some homework to do. Collectively this nation is flushing a lot of it’s money and resources down the toilet to sustain it’s beef consumption.
But I understand there are families whose lives depend on this industry (and don’t give me the usual line about Western heritage and history. How bout the history and heritage of the indigenous people that were murdered to make room for the cattle. I believe we’re talking thousands of years here.) I have no doubt that they are good, kind people with strong family values.
So it’s not like we don’t understand that you and your family have to eat. There’s plenty of destructive and criminal activity in this world that feeds a lot of families. It doesn’t mean we should encourage an inefficient and unsustainable industry. I don’t think wolves or buffalo are more important that people. I just think that when you fail to take into account that you are a part of nature and not lord and master over it, you’re putting yourself and everything around you in jeopardy,
We need to work together to create an economy that respects the fact that soil, water and wildlife need to be protected as much as you need to eat, and indeed, you wouldn’t be able to eat without them. You need only look to nature to see that when a species begins to over-consume it’s resources, it begins to collapse.
Times are changing, and as we run out of oil, a lot of the ways we do business are in for serious restructuring, and we all need to look ahead to new ways of living and interacting with each other.
“Recently a truckload of sheep in Blaine County headed to market crashed and killed a whole lot of lambs. Did Wildlife Services go after the driver?…”
Are sheep wildlife???? HELLO?!?!?!
No matter what I show, say, or do- wolf huggers will beleive what they beleive, accurate or not. To you wolves do no ‘wrong’ and are nothing but wonderful, have no negative affects, erc etc etc. If something bad happens with wolves, well by God it was some person’s fault. That’s what’s sad, there’s no room for error as you see no possibility for it. Comparing your family member’s pasture cattle program hardly compares to those larger operations who are multi-generational and business-oriented. But this is all really pointless, isn’t it? I’m just wrong and you’re just right??? Hmmm…
Are you serious?! “Someone moved the carcass, someone disturbed the wolf, sheep act too much like prey…” but these are legitimate reasons for wolf behavior, and not excuses…. right.
I don’t know how to respond to you Erin. You don’t seem to know much about wolves other than what you hear at the chatterbox cafe. I suggest you try to look at them more objectively and try to learn something about them without your fears and prejudices getting in the way. I also suggest that you learn something about ecology and how things really work rather than how you want them to work.
Nobody is saying here that wolves don’t kill livestock or other animals to make a living. I think you believe that many of the people here that have respect for wildlife and such just don’t understand it the way you do. I have respect for wolves because they play an important role that humans can’t play. I have read numerous books and have spent hours upon hours watching them and searching for them in an attempt to understand them. I have stood 15 yards away from a wolf while alone at night. I have stumbled into a denning area and had them run away from me. I know people that have been between the alpha female and her den full of pups and nothing happened to them.
Wolves are different than mountain lions and bears and many other predators. I can’t explain why they are different but they are. I’m not saying that they don’t cause problems for people and their industry but they are here and, like any other animal, we should strive to understand them. There is no legitimate reason for their behavior or excuses. They are just wolves and you seem to think that wolves can only be bad. I don’t think that they are good or bad. They are just wolves being wolves. They have no ability to reason like we do, especially when it comes to their survival. They do what they have to do, with the tools that they have, to survive and that may not be pretty in your eyes.
While we manipulate our livestock to be stupid so that we can control it, the livestock also becomes less fit to deal with predators. The wolves react to the behavior of sheep because they see it as an easy prey. They see something wrong with it which is how they choose their prey, like when they go after the wounded elk rather than the healthy one. It’s easier and takes less risk and energy. It’s the same kind of calculation that we make every day but our survival doesn’t always depend on it like a wolf’s does.
I have to respond to Ralph’s comments in item #18. My family owns a ranch with several thousand deeded acres and with grazing allotments on 10s of thousands of acres of public land. Their operation consists of 800+ cattle. During the summer only 100-200 head stay on private land while the rest are on public land. Some years, these large operations lose 40 -50 head of livestock and some years many more. So there is no comparison to your son in laws hobby ranch where they raise maybe 50-head of livestock only on private pasture where they are carefully watched each and every day. On large multi-million dollar operations this daily watchful care is next to impossible when there are thousands of acres to look after each day. What many of those so called wolf conservationist want is cattle off our private lands and they seem to believe that will solve all the so called conflicts between wolves and livestock. Yes, I know you will claim that there are more beneficial reasons to remove livestock from public lands but there are some wolf lovers whom seem to believe that this will be a fix, but it won’t. Yet wolves will continue to prey on livestock even when cattle are removed from our public lands because they know no boundaries. As I said before, I believe their is a need for the wolf to be part of our ecosystem but I also believe that if the so called conservationist (environmentalist) push for the removal of livestock from the public lands for whatever reason then the private landowner should be able to remove wolves from his private land for whatever reason they see fit. After all, wolves will kill the easiest prey they can find which means they will invade private property at times and kill livestock. Wolves should continue to have protection in the national parks, Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area and other designated wilderness areas where mechanized vehicles are prohibited but once they are on public land that is shared by off road vehicles, horses cattle, sheep, campers, etc. then they really deserve no more rights than the deer, elk, bear, mountain lion, or other wildlife that are subject to the many hunters that make Idaho a premier hunting state. And when all cattle are removed permanently from public grazing lands (which is only a matter of time) then all is fair game for the private landowner and he should be allowed to manage predatory animals however and whenever he/she desires without interference from conservationist, environmentalist, defenders of wildlife, etc.
Interesting assessment but I disagree. I don’t have time to address this in more detail right now or I would. Maybe someone else might.
Whenever the Erin’s of the world start with me I just ask them to read the following quote and think about it a little.
The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal “what good is it?” If the
land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good,whether we understand it
or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand,
then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is
the first precaution of intelligent thinking. -Aldo Leopold
Your name says it all…. you’re “buffaloed”… I do my reading and asking and therefore know and beleive what I do. This is because I don’t beleive the warm and fuzzies and poor wolf crap. I looked at this whole thing without the “sympathy” for wolves. That’s why I can’t beleive what you people say when you claim to have spent time in the outdoors. I don’t hate wolves, they have their place just like everything else. Their place isn’t overpopulation, however, and that’s what I have a problem with. Humans aren’t the only ones who sport kill. Weasels Skunks and Wolves do it too, beleive what you will- There’s a reason many wolf “biologists” don’t agree on things and show different results in their research. I understand just fine, I understand what’s happening that’s not cute and furry, what you don’t want to understand or even admit to.
Well, I need to comment again! I can’t help it but when one attacks the very core of the industry that I grew up with and support then I must defend it. This is to buffaloaed item 21 remarks. Cattle or livestock are not stupid. They are only doing what they were raised and bred for. Hmmm! much like wolves exept with human intervention. Perhaps it is us humans who who are stupid since we intervened. If you take a young wolf pup and raise it in captivity like cattle or sheep then it will turn out to be nothing more than a dog. It will act like a dog expecting you to feed it and take care of its very needs. It does not know how to be wild. So………wolves are not the smart intelligent animal you perceive them to be any more than any other wildlife and they are just as “Stupid” as sheep, cattle or any other animal if it is raised in captivity by humans before it has a chance to be wild. By the way…….generally I do not bash and do not find it productive to either the wolf lover or hater so I will try to contain myself. This should be an open forum for positve discussion to potential solutions but with both sides attacking each other does not accomplish anything. Therefore, I do not think I will participate anymore in such one sided blogs as they have no positive results.
One thing I think hasn’t been looked to enough is the management style on these public lands. As we can see in this blog there’s wolf lovers defending wolves and livestock growers defending livestock and we’re all informed intelligent people perhaps overlooking some solutions with this argument. Livestock are not protected as well now because large predators are not taken for granted in current management practices. If stock is to be grazed on public land, where the public also allows large predators, managers need to learn how to protect their stock again. In Italy they use shepherds and large dogs, Maremmas I think, that are capable of defending the flock against wolves. It’s a lot cheaper to have fewer shepherds tending the flock and be reimbursed for wolf predation, than to pay more shepherds to prevent losses in the first place. In a way the reimbursement system itself is to blame because livestock managers still see wolves as someone else’s problem, and not a fact of life that needs to be accounted for in their management plan. I used to have a small flock of sheep, protected from ground predators by electric fences, which worked fine, then one day a psychotic killer raven turned up and began killing lambs in pastures all over the valley, and we all had to learn to protect our sheep and poultry from air predators as well. No one was going to pay us for raven losses, so we had to figure out ways to do it ourselves. Reimbursement is a great way to smooth over relations between wolves and ranchers, but sometime they’re going to have to learn to protect their animals again or this will go on forever. Eliminating the predators as a whole is no longer the answer.
Darcy I think you hit the nail on the head. Western public land ranchers need to stop assuming that they can turn their livestock out for months on end and expect them all to be there when they come back.
Over near McCall, Idaho where a lot of these sheep losses have been, those operations that have guard dogs (at least a sufficient number of them) lose far fewer sheep to not just wolves, but to the much more common coyotes, as well as bears and cougar. Ralph Maughan
Here is an article about a wolf attack in Canada in early September where several people were injured. I cannot feel much sympathy for the 3 wolves that were maimed by Wildlife Services in Idaho when this tragic incident happens. How come these articles, although rare, never get posted on the ‘For Wolves’ blog site. Could it be because the wolf lovers are so disoriented and brainwashed to recognize that something like this could happen. I know what will be said; Oh, this was abnormal behavior. The wolf had something wrong with it which caused is to behave this way, etc. etc. But get realistic. The wolf injured humans. I am not saying that this is normal or routinely occurs but it can happen. Lets not loose site of that.
For whatever reason the link did not occur with the item #28 positing so here it is.
http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1157580611668&call_pageid=1020420665036&col=1112101662670
Laird, I posted the story to this blog on Sept. 7. As of today, seven people had commented on it. Look for yourself. I have covered all the older wolf attack stories on my old web site. This blog has a good search function. If you learn to use it you won’t make this kind of mistake. Ralph Maughan
Hello Laird,
I appreciate your comments although I am a dreaded pro-wolfer. Regarding your comment that we won’t see these types of stories on the blog, I believe Ralph does indeed post these types of stories whenever they come up. If you read the article, which I had already read when it occured, the wolf was quite injured (broken clavicle) which would account for the behavior. It is terrible when such a thing happens and my heart goes out to the family.
Maybe Ralph can confirm that he posts these articles? There was another incident in Canada earlier this year, where a young man may have been killed by a wolf. I believe Ralph posted that one as well. It occured in an extremely remote mining camp where the wolves had been fed by humans. There is even video tape, that I saw on the National Geographic Channel, where employees are “socializing” with the wolves at the mining camp in question.
The pro-wildlife camps acknowledge when these things happen and like to find out why such things occur.
Elizabeth
Thanks Elizabeth. I am neither pro or con with respect to wolf re-introduction. They have their place. However, when someone or some domestic animal is injured or killed is where I have a problem.
As I said in posting #22, they deserve protection in the national parks and designated wilderness areas that are off limits to vehicles but when animals or people are injured or killed then action needs to be taken.
I enjoy observing and watching the wolf in the wild just as much as Ralph or any other wolf observer but that does not mean that since I acknowledge they are a beautiful, intelligent animal that I have allowed my senses to become dull to the fact that protecting people and domestic animals and those who make a living in an industry that uses public land do not deserve equally as much protection as the wolf.
As I said before, I knew of those excuses the wolf lovers would say about the wolfs behavior. For your information, below is a link to a study done on wild wolves that have attacked humans and what did they find….These were healthy, wild wolves, no excuses for their behavior.
http://www.aws.vcn.com/wolf_attacks_on_humans.html
Whether wolves attack humans or not is irrelevant to this debate. Such occurances, regardless of the impetus are rare enough to be excluded from immediate concern. What is of immediate concern here is livestock. You want your livestock to be protected. Well, by all means, protect them. You’ll vene have the support of the ‘wolf-lover’ community if you decide to hire some folks to ride the range. Some of us might even apply for those jobs ourselves, as we realize that protecting the livestock will in effect protect the wolves.
I myself support a boycott of beef due to this kind of behavior and behavior towards the buffalo.
Regardless, I also support realistic solutions that protect wildlife. Supporting producers to provide senseable means of protecting their livestock is a win-win situation. This is where the environmental community will step forward to offer a mutually benificial solution. It’s up to people like you, Laird, who don’t exhibit the fierce hatred of wolves that some other ranchers are so proud to display, to accept that offer and help bring about a lasting peace.
Kalanu,
As I said before, I believe the wolf deserves to be a part of our ecosystem. I have no problem with them and I do not go around trying to get rid of them at will. There has to be a justifiable, documented cause of death to an animal. I was also only pointing to the fact that not all wolf attacks to animals or humans for that matter occur because the wolf enthusiast say something was abnormally wrong with it. Oh, and this may be hard for you folks to believe but the forest service and BLM has a new policy where my family run their cattle that they have to move them from allotment to allotment every two weeks which they did not implement until about three years ago so these agencies are doing better and the cattle are being checked often, contrary to Ralph’s and others beliefs. Cattle are not left out for months on end without being checked. Ranchers are in the business to make money just like the rest of us so they do check them although there are always some bad apples. Anyway, enjoy you vegetarian dinner while I enjoy my beef.
You may not leave your cattle out unchecked, but many do, and, of, course, there are also many who check on them in a superficial manner.
Sheep are herded more closely or there will be serious disappearance, but even then it is common for outdoor recreationists to find 10, 20 or more sheep left behind.
Payments for predator losses are often a deterent to good herding practice, especially the slush fund the State of Idaho has for undocumented “wolf losses.”
This thread is now too long. So I am closing it to further comment posts