by Rebecca Himmelstein
RALPH — Holmes Cattle Farm in Ralph of Dickinson County has been in the Holmes family for decade. Allen Holmes inherited it from his grandfather, but the past few months have been hard.
“I was checking on my calves one day and I noticed a terrible odor,” said Allen Holmes, owner of Holmes Cattle Farm. “I found out one of my calves had been bitten, it had a chunk taken out of its rear end. So I went out and checked the rest of my herd and I ended up finding the remains of a carcass lying on the ground. It was just a head and a spine.”
It was more than that.
“I have lost four calves and one bull,” said Allen Holmes. “Right now I am missing one calf and one cow that I am trying to find.”
With three young children, Allen and his wife, Vanessa, not only fear for their cattle, but for their family as well.
“I can’t leave my backyard and to think I have to carry a gun or a pistol to put wood in the wood stove is terrifying” said Vanessa Holmes, Allen’s wife.
“So far this year, the Department of Natural Resources knows of 35 wolf attacks in the Upper Peninsula. There were 23 against cattle and 12 against dogs. Depredation on both livestock and dogs has gone up this year, likely because of last winter,” said Brian Roell, wildlife biologist. “Wolves are hungrier.”
Roell thinks it is because of less deer and other prey, so wolves have moved to farms to survive. Like the Department of Natural Resources, Senator Tom Casperson supports a wolf hunt if it will not hurt their population.
“It is inappropriate to suggest we will just deal with it after they have killed our domestic animals, after they have killed our livestock,” said Senator Tom Casperson (R), 38th District. “Then we can deal with it? There is a problem that we are losing so many livestock.”
If a farmer contacts the Department of Natural Resources within 24 hours after an attack, they will only be reimbursed for the farm animal’s market cost. While Allen says he is grateful for the DNR’s support, it does not fix the problem.
“When your animals are out getting chased they are using a lot more energy and in order to get more energy they need to eat more food” said Allen Holmes. “I ended up feeding probably another 40 acres of pasture land that I would normally use as fields.”
The cost: a couple thousand dollars.
“It is a little difficult because I grew up on this farm and I was always by myself with the dog walking around playing out in the barn, in the woods, in the field and now I don’t really want to let my kids go out and get loose,” said Allen Holmes. “Maybe they can sit in the front yard, but not much more than that.”
“We are going to get to the point where it is not animals that are being taken and harvested by predators, it is going to end up being our children” said Vanessa Holmes.
There are more than 630 wolves in Michigan, all in the Upper Peninsula. Even though there was not a wolf hunt in 2014, the Department of Natural Resources expects one in the future.