Lone wolf kills calf near Mackay
Todd Adams
A lone wolf has killed one calf and possibly four others on private
ranch property in the Chilly area northwest of the Mackay Reservoir.
The calf confirmed to be a wolf kill was found on Saturday, February
15, said Jim Holyam, a biologist with the Nez Perce Tribe (NPT)
and Rick Williamson of Wildlife Services.
In addition to the one confirmed wolf kill, two calves are
listed as “probable” wolf kills and two calves as “possible”
kills, Williamson said.
Williamson said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has requested
that Wildlife Services remove the wolf, which means a lethal
control action will be attempted and the responsible wolf shot
if it can be found.
Williamson was notified of the depredations Saturday and was
investigating Sunday. He was able to confirm one calf was killed
by a wolf because the wolf left fresh tracks in the snow around
the dead calf, there were signs of a struggle, and bite marks,
wounds and hemorrhaging on the carcass clearly pointed to a wolf
kill.
The other calves were found within one square mile of the
confirmed kill, but none of the other sites had snow or wolf
tracks, Williamson said. Not all the evidence needed was found
where the two “probable” wolf-killed calves were found.
The carcass of one of the possible kills had been completely
consumed and another dead calf had been moved from the kill site,
so Williamson couldn’t investigate it.
The depredations took place over a period of about 10 days,
Williamson said. Birds feeding on one carcass led a rancher to
the confirmed kill site on Saturday, where he found wolf tracks
and called Williamson right away.
So far, it’s an unknown wolf, Holyam said. Williamson
added he’s been unable to pick up signals from any radio-collared
wolves in the area.
Williamson and other Wildlife Services employees can’t
name the rancher or ranchers whose calves were killed; all they
can tell the press is that the depredations took place on private
property.
The Wildhorse Pack has dispersed from its territory in the
Copper Basin area, Holyam and Williamson said. Wolf managers
can’t yet say for sure whether the wolf responsible was
a member of the Wildhorse Pack, the two told the Messenger,
but Williamson said the Wildhorse Pack is not suspected.
Wildlife Services will try to locate the wolf, said Williamson,
but there was no evidence Monday the animal is still in the Chilly
area. Ranchers have been asked to be on the lookout and notify
USFWS if they see wolf activity in the area.
Due to the large number of cattle on private land in the Chilly
area, it would be difficult to haze wolves away with a RAG radio-activated
guard box (RAG), Williamson said. The wolf responsible is probably
uncollared and would have to be radio-collared to trigger any
RAG boxes.
Little previous activity
There had been no reports of wolves killing calves prior to February
15, said Curt Mack, grey wolf recovery coordinator for NPT. The
Messenger had contacted Mack February 11 for an update
on wolf activity. Mack said then that wolf managers are monitoring
a possible new pack in the Morgan Creek area of 10 or 11 grey
and black wolves, but they have been unable to capture or radio-collar
any of them.
Wolf managers managed to capture and radio-collar 14 wolves
in six different packs the third week in January, Mack said.
Locally, that includes the nine-member Buffalo Ridge Pack, the
six-member Moyer Basin Pack and the five-member Jureano Pack.
Collars were also placed on wolves in the Gold Fork, Scott Mountain
and Orphan packs out of McCall.
The Morgan Creek “bunch” is a possible new pack,
Mack said, although it hasn’t yet been designated as such
because wolf managers don’t know if it has an alpha pair
and will reproduce. Wolf managers need help tracking the pack
so members can be captured and fitted with radio collars, he
said. Anyone sighting wolves in the Morgan Creek area should
contact Mack at 208-634-1061 or Carter Niemeyer at the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service’s Boise office at 208-378-5243.
Mack said it’s possible that surviving members of the
old Twin Peaks Pack formed this new group, but it’s more
likely a new pack formed by other dispersing wolves.
The new Buffalo Ridge Pack produced pups in the spring of
2002 and is roaming a territory that includes Thompson Creek,
Squaw Creek and the Bayhorse area.
Mack said wolves on the east side of the state appear to be
doing better than wolves on the west side. The annual winter
capture and collaring effort out of McCall found that average
wolf pack size there is down. Usually, packs have six to 10 members,
but managers counted only two to three wolves in the packs on
the Boise and Payette National forests.
Mack said it’s sometimes more difficult to spot wolves
from the air during a winter with light snowpack, as it’s
hard to see tracks in the snow and easier for the wolves to move
around and avoid detection.
The light snowpack may be responsible for not counting as
many wolves in western Idaho, said Mack. Plus, elk are hanging
out in the higher timber country, not down on the creeks and
river bottoms, so the wolves preying on them are not hanging
around calving areas as much as in a normal winter.
Wolf pack viability
Wolf managers are concerned about the viability of the western
Idaho packs, Mack said. But he doesn’t expect the smaller
pack size to affect delisting of wolves. There were 40 breeding
pairs in the tri-state recovery area of Idaho, Wyoming and southwest
Montana in 2002, he said. This was the third year numbers stayed
above the threshold of 30 breeding pairs, which is the delisting
criteria.
Each of the three states has to come up with a wolf management
plan before the USFWS and NPT will turn over management to the
states. Wyoming so far has been dragging its feet on drafting
a plan.
Mack said he’s not sure if the smaller pack size is due
to disease or illegal shooting of wolves. Wolf managers have
not killed any wolves on the west side of the state recently,
he said. The western packs’ territories don’t take
in as much livestock grazing allotments as packs on the Salmon-Challis
National Forest.
It’s common for a newly-reintroduced wildlife population
to expand at its biologically maximum rate until its habitat
is filled and carrying capacity is reached, Mack said. Wolf populations
grew at double-digit rates in the first years after the 1995
reintroduction, growing at 40 to 60 percent per year. The rate
is down to 25 to 35 percent now, Mack said, and the rate of increase
will no doubt continue to slow.