Federal officials to eradicate two Madison Valley wolf packs
By NICK GEVOCK, Chronicle Staff Writer
The discovery Tuesday of two more cattle attacked by wolves in the Madison Valley has prompted federal officials to begin efforts to eradicate two wolf packs that are preying on livestock.
The carcass of a 1-year-old steer was found in a coulee on a ranch east of Ennis Lake, said Ed Bangs, wolf recovery leader for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It had been killed by wolves.
On the same ranch, a 1-year-old heifer had been so badly injured by wolves Tuesday morning that the rancher had to euthanize it.
“That indicates to me that they’re hunting livestock,” Bangs said of the wolves. “They’re not stumbling upon a calf and running off with it.”
Bangs has issued shoot-on-sight permits to two different ranchers who have had their livestock attacked over the past two weeks. And federal trappers are out searching for the packs in helicopters with orders to wipe out both.
Tuesday’s discoveries came on the heels of a string of incidents in which a steer and a stock dog were killed in the Bear Creek area east of Cameron. The Sentinel Pack of six wolves was responsible for those attacks, Bangs has said.
The latest attacks took place farther north in the Madisons and a separate, yet-unnamed pack of four wolves is suspected.
The situation has emotions running high in the Madison Valley.
Bangs received correspondence from all three of Montana’s congressional delegation asking for more aggressive action, as well as from Gov. Judy Martz requesting both packs be exterminated.
“Families are afraid to allow their children to play outdoors,” Martz wrote. “Frankly, there is no excuse for the constant harassment currently being suffered by the ranching community in the area.”
Madison County commissioners and ranchers have also criticized the federal government for not issuing the shoot-on-sight permits sooner.
Ranchers are afraid to shoot problem wolves for fear they’d be prosecuted by the federal government, Commissioner Ted Coffman said.
“The rancher on the ground is not only trying to protect his livelihood, he’s trying to protect (himself) from being prosecuted by the federal government,” Coffman said Tuesday.
But Bangs said he’s he’s explicitly told Madison Valley ranchers that they have the right to shoot a wolf caught in the act of attacking livestock without any permit.
“I don’t know what else to say,” Bangs said. “They can shoot 50 (wolves) if they catch them.”
However, Bangs said he had waited to issue the permits in hopes of protecting any collared wolves running with the packs. But he is no longer worried about that, since the only collared wolf has been spotted lying bloody in the snow. Federal trackers plan to check it today and determine whether it could still survive and lead them to the rest of the pack, or if it should be euthanized.
Without radio contact, it could take officials much longer to hunt down both packs.
“These wolf packs use hundreds of square miles,” he said. “You’re not going to walk around and just stumble into them.”