Changes on horizon for wolf-kill repayment program
KAREN MOCKLER
When wolves were returned to Montana in 1987, Defenders of Wildlife
launched a program to compensate ranchers for livestock lost to wolf
depredation. The Washington, D.C.-based organization hoped to smooth the
way for the recovery of the endangered species.
Since then, the group has paid out $213,489 for 259 cows, 550 sheep and 28
other animals in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
Now, with wolves on the brink of being removed from the Endangered Species
list, the question is whether Defenders of Wildlife will continue to
compensate ranchers for livestock lost to wolves.
Nina Fascione, director of carnivore conservation for the group, is not
sure what will happen, though the fund used to make the payments is “very
secure.”
“We haven’t made a determination yet,” she said. “We’ve always said we’ll
assess that when the time comes.”
Fascione said states such as Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan reimburse
livestock owners, and that her group hopes Idaho and other Western states
do the same thing.
But there’s opposition to that idea.
Ted Hoffman, president-elect of the Idaho Cattle Association, said Idaho
never wanted the wolves in the first place, and it “should not be expected
to be singled out to bear the cost of feeding and managing the wolves.
Since recovery was supposedly in the national interest, the nation’s
taxpayers should share equally in paying for it.”
For now, the group will continue to pay compensation.
The group pays ranchers the animals’ fall-market value, whether they’re
killed in the fall or not. If it’s a possible wolf kill, Defenders pays
half-claims, Fascione said.
“We try to accommodate that concern as well without paying for every sheep
that disappears in the western United States.”
The program has been “very well-received,” Fascione said. “Most of the
ranchers who receive money are very thankful to have it. Others will
grumble that we didn’t pay enough or pay in all cases.”
The number of livestock that are actually killed by wolves is tough to
gauge. Initial results of a cooperative study by Wildlife Services, the
Nez Perce tribe and the University of Idaho suggest that for every calf
killed by wolves and found by the cattle producer, as many as 5.7
additional wolf kills may have occurred without ever being detected.
Hoffman said the loss of calves is “the tip of the iceberg.” Harassment to
surviving stock translates into weight loss and fewer pregnancies,
increased supervision and searches for wolves or lost calves. So while
most ranchers accept the payments – the number of ranchers reimbursed in
the three states now totals 186 – they don’t accept them as total
compensation for the trouble they’re caused, he said.
Ranchers have gotten more adept at identifying wolf kills, said Carter
Niemeyer, who did forensic work for Wildlife Services from 1974-2000 in
all three states.
“There’s an evolution to this thing,” he said. “When wolves were first
naturally recolonizing northwest Montana, I would say five out of 100
(calls) had to do with wolves. As the ranchers got more educated, they
would contact us less often on speculating about a wolf kill.”
More often, calls came in on actual wolf kills and the number of paid
claims rose.
During the past six years in Idaho, the number of requests for assistance
to deal with wolf predation problems has increased an average of more than
82 percent a year, while the number of wolves has increased an average of
71 percent a year.
Yet the number of livestock killed by wolves remains “miniscule,” Niemeyer
said.
“The wolf isn’t ever going to impact the livestock industry (as a whole).
The impact will be so small; it’s almost immeasurable. It’s the individual
rancher that sustains losses, the one guy who gets singled out … it
quickly wrecks his profit line.”
And, on occasion, causes him to lose the family ranch, Hoffman is quick to
add. “For the few that have major problems (with wolves), or lower grade
but chronic problems … it may be likened to living with a chronic
drought.”
Margaret Soulen Hinson hasn’t lost any cattle to wolves, but from 1996 to
2001 she lost 100 sheep. Defenders of Wildlife has been “very fair” in
compensating her for market value, she said. If and when Defenders does
stop paying, Hinson still has hope.
“I really think the chances of some innovative ways to do compensation
might come forth. Idaho currently has a compensation for cougar and black
bear. So whether the wolf will evolve into that in some way, I don’t
know.”
Hinson would just as soon the wolf had never been introduced.
“But it was,” she said. “I don’t think the wolf is going away. Now that
it’s here, I think it behooves ranchers … to work with people to find
creative solutions.”