Social Network

Email: timberwolfinfonetwork@gmail.com
Email: timberwolfinfonetwork@gmail.com

CA: Ranchers prepare for wolves in Siskiyou County

By Tim Holt

Known as the “Lassen Pack,” its parent wolves have already sired pups three years in a row, and have four pups in the current litter, according to officials with the State Department of Fish and Wildlife. This pack, along with one lone roaming wolf, have killed at least 12 cows in the past two years in the two counties.

Sooner or later Siskiyou County will be home, once again, to one or more packs of wolves. The Shasta Pack took up residence here for awhile in 2015, and since then lone wolves have wandered into Siskiyou County in their search for mates and a home. State officials say it’s “probable” that the Shasta Pack was responsible for one livestock killing here.

At present, the only known wolf pack in California is roaming back and forth between Lassen and Plumas counties. Known as the “Lassen Pack,” its parent wolves have already sired pups three years in a row, and have four pups in the current litter, according to officials with the State Department of Fish and Wildlife. This pack, along with one lone roaming wolf, have killed at least 12 cows in the past two years in the two counties.

This puts ranchers there on the frontlines of a state effort to balance the concerns of rural stakeholders with the protected status of wolves under the state’s Endangered Species Act.

How ranchers there are grappling with this challenge could well serve as a template for ranchers in Siskiyou County.

To aid ranchers in Lassen and Plumas counties, the state has purchased, and is loaning out to ranchers, “fladry” equipment: colorful red flags attached to wires. It’s a simple technique that has been used for centuries to ward off wolves, going back to when they roamed all over Europe.

The state is also planning to purchase and loan out “guard” boxes that emit threatening sounds – for example, gunshots – and activate strobe lights when a wolf with a radio collar gets anywhere near the box. Guard boxes can also produce the sounds and strobe lights at random intervals, to ward off wolves that may not have radio collars.

Given the relatively low level of threat thus far in Siskiyou County, only a few ranchers are taking defensive steps, and that’s mainly to purchase large, aggressive guard dogs to patrol the perimeter of their properties and ward off any wolves who might wander in.

One rancher, Jim Morris, is experimenting with donkeys as a wolf deterrent.

Morris, the president of the Siskiyou County Farm Bureau, believes that both the fladry flags and the guard boxes have “limited effectiveness.” Coyotes, he said, figure out after awhile that those deterrents aren’t a real threat, and wolves, he noted, are “a lot smarter” than coyotes.

One thing you pick up from talking to Siskiyou ranchers is a grudging respect for the native intelligence and adaptability of wolves.

Fish and Wildlife officials and Siskiyou County ranchers began grappling with the issue of wolf entry nearly three years ago at a public meeting in Yreka, where the state first introduced its draft plan for dealing with wolf entry to the state and sought reactions from the public.

There was predictably some concern stated by local politicians. The dialogue that emerged at that meeting between state authorities and the ranchers who attended was more a “let’s roll up our sleeves and make the best of a bad situation” attitude.

The ranchers pointed out that 24-hour surveillance of their lands was impractical and called for radio collars on the wolves so that they could get at least get a heads up when a wolf was nearby.

At the 2017 Yreka meeting, Suzanne Asha Stone of Defenders of Wildlife shared her 20 years’ worth of experience with the wolf population of Idaho, which had grown to 770 wolves. Nonlethal strategies for protecting livestock, like fladry and guard boxes, she reported, had reduced wolf kills there to “near zero.”

“It takes awhile living with wolves before people realize that their worst fears won’t come true,” she said.

Former Siskiyou County Ag Commissioner Patrick Griffin doubts that Siskiyou County will be home to large populations of wolves at any time in the near future, mainly due to low populations of their primary food supply, deer and elk. The deer population, he noted, has been plummeting for the past 20 years in Siskiyou County due to relatively robust populations of bear and mountain lions, and the expansion of human habitat.

Scott Valley rancher Scott Murphy agrees with Griffin’s assessment, but thinks this makes it more likely that the wolves who do venture into the county will prey on livestock.

Meanwhile, Griffin has one tip for the county’s ranchers to help minimize wolf depredations: Be extra vigilant about any vulnerabilities in their livestock, whether it’s pink eye or a sore foot. Wolves are instinctively drawn to weak members in a herd. Separating those animals out, and treating them, makes wolf attacks less likely, he said.

Source: https://www.siskiyoudaily.com/news/20191024/ranchers-prepare-for-wolves-in-siskiyou-county