Cattle family battles wolves for survival
By Tom Jackson King, Managing Editor
The Ely family of Upper Eagle Creek has come face to muzzle with a stark
reality of federal endangered species legislation — their use of federal
grazing land cost them so many cattle deaths from wolf attack they ended
up with fewer cattle than they began with.
The Elys began the grazing year in July 2001 with 165 cows and 78 calves.
They ended the 2002 summer grazing season with 158 cows and 31 calves,
according to Ely family records and an independent count by Alan Armistead
of Wildlife Services.
That amounts to a loss rate of 5 percent for cows and more than 60 percent
for calves.
“We’re missing too many cows,” rancher Gary Ely said recently. “I’m at the
point now I can’t afford to take my cow dogs anywhere.”
Ely uses as many as 13 cow dogs to locate stray cattle hidden in dense
brush, deep arroyos or blind canyons. The dogs are as much a tool of
modern ranching as riding a horse is. Without dogs, Ely spends much more
time finding and moving his cattle from one pasture on the Apache National
Forest to another pasture.
Fellow rancher Barbara Marks of the Blue River area knows the Ely family
well and knows their operation.
“The Elys have just been hammered. Things have been happening fast and
furious. It’s happening in a big way now,” she said recently.
Marks said the Elys are dealing with a new breed of predator — fearless
wolves that enter hunter camps and approach man and horse in an attempt to
attack a rancher’s cow dogs.
“They have no fear,” she said of the released wolves. “The wolves are
stealing from other predators.”
The Ely family contends their losses to released wolves are a lot more
than the four cattle deaths documented by Armistead and paid for by
Defenders of Wildlife.
They are saying the same thing as Marks — that wolves are killing more
cows than those documented and that they are forcing other predators, such
as mountain lions, bears and coyotes, to go after cattle more than those
species would normally do.
“We did have an eight-month old heifer killed by the Saddle Pack on the
northern part of our ranch in early Nov-ember. The Francisco Pack last
confirmed kill was a 1,200 pound black cow in October, her calf has not
been found,” Darcy Ely said recently.
It’s gotten so bad the Elys have been forced to move their cattle to a new
winter pasture.
“The Saddle Pack use our winter area as a territory, therefore in
cooperation with the USFW, AGF, USFWS and other permittees we are moving
the entire herd out of the normal pattern of wolf reintroduction territory
for the winter months.
“This does not mean that the cattle are safe from the wolves, just in a
new territory,” she said.
Laura Schneberger, who heads the Gila National Forest Permittees
Association in New Mexico, says disaster is looming for ranchers like the
Elys.
“There has never been losses like this prior to the arrival of the packs.
The Francisco and Saddle packs have all but driven the Elys out of
business this summer,” she said. “The compensation doesn’t come anywhere
close (to the economic loss). Something’s gotta change.”
Brian Kelly, wolf program manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
in Albuquerque, said he sympathizes with the Elys, the Stacy family and
other ranchers in both states who have suffered cattle losses.
“The Elys have been suffering losses. We have worked within our rule to
try to help them. When we got three confirmed depredations, it was a
threshold for us. Once we had three we put traps on the ground to remove
the wolves. We have the option to do lethal control if we need to,” Kelly
said.
“We have a helicopter available this coming weekend. We’ll be capturing
and removing some of the wolves involved in the depredation on the Elys,”
he said.
Kelly agrees not all wolf attack losses are being found.
“I have for the year 2002, 10 confirmed and two probable cattle
depredations. All are calves. I have one dog killed and one injured horse.
“I am of the mind we are not finding all the losses. I will acknowledge
there is some level of undocumented loss out there. We do not do the
depredation analysis. Wildlife Services does. People like the Elys and
other producers have a level of trust with Wildlife Services. They do it
independent of us,” he said.
Wildlife Services is a part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
It is the agency that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has asked to
confirm wolf-caused cattle losses and to deal one-on-one with rural
ranchers in both states.
Leading that effort is Armistead, who has been involved with the federal
Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program since its beginning four years
ago. In a Nov. 9, 2002, e-mail to New Mexico’s Schneberger, Armi-stead
described the Elys’ bad year.
“So far we have confirmed two calves and one cow killed, one horse injured
and two dogs injured. Also confirmed two lion kills (of cattle) and Gary
(Ely) found one bear kill (of cattle). He (Gary Ely) is gathering his
cattle now and we are getting a more accurate picture of what the damage
is. He (Ely) marked 79 calves going into his summer pasture and I believe
so far has found only about 24 calves total,” Armistead said.
“Some of those (calves) were born in the pasture and should be in addition
to the marked calves.
“We (Mr. Murdock, wildlife specialist for Greenlee County) and I are
working on the final depredation reports that we have confirmed today . .
. Am trying to get a handle on Francisco (Pack)’s escapades right now.
“We were having a lot of trouble finding carcasses to confirm they were
eating everything up pretty much . . . The country is very rough and
brushy and it is most difficult to monitor or gather (data),” he said.
The Elys’ ability to avoid the wide-ranging wolves of the Francisco Pack
and the Saddle Pack is limited due to bureaucratic suspicion that ranchers
may kill wolves due to their impact on grazing cattle.
“I was told if I was given a tracking radio, if an animal turned up dead
I’d be liable,” Gary Ely said, adding that Paul Ovarie of the Arizona Game
and Fish Department gave him the warning.
“My risk for killing a wolf is I would lose my ranch and my permit. The
rancher will be the least likely suspect,” he said.
And relying on Armistead to trap wolves and move them away from the Elys’
Four Drag Ranch pasture has not been a good option until recently.
“For 14 months now they (USFWS) have denied his request to trap the
uncollared (wolves). Alan Armistead can’t trap because they’re afraid
he’ll trap collared wolves,” Gary Ely said.
All parties, including Fish and Wildlife Service, have agreed there are
uncollared wolves, wolf-dog hybrids and young wild-born wolves present in
both national forests.
The effort to remove and dispose of wolf hybrids, which Kelly endorses,
has been underway for several months, Kelly said. But the renewed effort
by Armistead and others to capture both problem wolves and hybrids may
have come too late for the Elys.
“How much are the Elys supposed to take?” Marks asked. “The truth is that
ranchers have been the most patient of all. I don’t see how the Elys stood
it.
“It’s too bad when people like the Elys, Stacys, etc. are suffering from
the realities of wolf reintroduction with no relief or understanding in
sight,” Marks said.
“The Elys are caught between a rock and a hard place with some sharp teeth
ripping at anything that isn’t covered,” Schneberger said.
Kelly says he has an idea he thinks both environmentalists and ranchers
can agree on.
“I want to set up a research program to identify what losses are due to
wolves. One technique could be to put radio collars on cows or calves so
we can determine what killed them,” he said.
“The purposes is two-fold. We want to understand when Gary is down 20
percent on cows and 50 percent on calves, why? And what does three
(cattle) kills mean compared to annual losses (from all types of
predators)?” Kelly said.
“I don’t want to leave the impression of not caring about the situation
the Elys have been in for the last year or year and a half. The nature of
this program is it’s not something we can deal with unilaterally. We have
rules to follow,” he said.
And one of those rules says FWS cannot issue a permit to the Elys for them
to kill a Mexican gray wolf when it is caught attacking a cow or calf.
Until there are three wolf pairs documented as producing two years worth
of surviving pups, only FWS can undertake “lethal control” of the animals
they have placed in the forest.
“The majority of our packs don’t have this problem. But when a pack is a
problem, it can be pretty severe,” Kelly said.