BY OTIENA ELLWAND, EDMONTON JOURNAL
EDMONTON – Farmers have met with parks and government officials to discuss their concerns about a growing pack of wolves prowling a pasture east of Edmonton where more than two dozen cattle went missing or were killed this summer.
Dan Brown, president of the Blackfoot Grazing Association, said he is dissatisfied with the outcome of the Tuesday meeting in Tofield because the province will not allow them to cull more than six wolves. That was based on an understanding that there were 12 wolves in the pack, but now the province is saying there may be 15 or more, Brown said.
Paul Frame, a carnivore specialist with Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development, said it is believed about 15 wolves roam in the area, but an accurate count will be done in December.
Depending on that outcome, they may adjust the number of wolves that can be culled.
The department is also looking into “proactive, non-lethal type methods” that can help deal with the problem, such as swiftly removing cow carcasses from the area, Frame said.
“The objective is to minimize the losses next spring when they put cattle back in,” he said.
Brown told the Journal last week that 29 calves, yearlings and cows have either been killed or have gone missing from a pasture in the Cooking Lake-Blackfoot Grazing, Wildlife and Provincial Recreation Area, about 50 kilometres east of Edmonton, since the end of May.
His organization’s annual meeting is in February and if there’s no concrete plan in place, he said he won’t ask members to bring their cattle back next summer.
The first suspected wolf kill occurred at the end of May, but a cull wasn’t approved until the beginning of October. Brown said it took too long to decide what to do and they can’t afford to “hum and haw” again.
“Every time one of our animals dies, it’s a paycheque gone,” he said.
Frame said that is one of the concerns the working group is looking into.
“This is the first year that we’ve had to deal with this out there,” he said. “Our response time, a lot of it was just gauging what is the situation, what is going on and how should we respond given the multi-use of that landscape out there.”