by Mark Holyoak/KPAX
As wolves spread across the Montana landscape, ranchers find themselves looking over their shoulder to protect their animals and their livelihood.
Last year alone, there were at least 367 confirmed wolf kills of livestock – and there are at least six so far this year.
But for long-time cattleman Ron Skinner near Drummond, the cost of wolves runs much deeper than an occasional cow carcass.
It’s auction day on Ron Skinner’s ranch in Hall, where fellow ranchers bought 174 of his cattle, but it’s the money that got away that really hurts.
Skinner explained, “”We had severe weight loss in calves that came out of wolf areas compared to calves where there are no wolves.”
Those heifer calves were an average of 97 pounds lighter than others. With the going rate of beef at 93 cents per pound – that’s a $90.21 loss per animal. Multiplied by 150, that’s a loss of $13,531.
A more visually disturbing loss is wolf depredation, with Skinner noting, “I’m a purebred breeder. This was an embryo transplant heifer and she was worth a lot of money and we don’t know what she would produce in her lifetime, but the compensation wasn’t even close.”
On a nearby mountain, we come across a still-warm elk carcass–tangible evidence of perhaps Skinner’s greatest problem. Skinner said, “The environmental damages and range management damages are worse than depredation.”
Skinner leases this land to graze his cattle, but he’s not getting anywhere near his money’s worth from it because wolves continually push the cattle off the grassy slopes, away from the feed, and back into over-grazed riparian areas below, forcing him to buy 200 extra tons of hay this year.
Skinner says there are many other wolf-related effects on ranchers such as stress, which can lead to lower pregnancy rates and young cattle that don’t grade as high, extra manpower to monitor wolf activity, injury to livestock, damage to fences and danger to humans – like when wolves showed up in his corrals right next to his house driving the black bulls through the fence onto the highway at night.
“The first thing I did was get on the road with my flashers so somebody didn’t get killed and it will eventually happen,” Skinner remarked.
Despite the constant threat of wolves, Skinner carries on as a third-generation Montana rancher with a wary eye on the future.
Skinner said, “The real question is, do you want ranchers to produce food for you? If we go through the economic pressures of wolves, some ranchers won’t survive.”
The Willow Creek wolf pack preyed on sheep and cattle belonging to Hall ranchers in 2008, so wildlife officials removed its 15 members. But three new wolves returned this past summer, killing another calf and a heifer.
Tomorrow in our “Living with Wolves” series, we’ll look at how wildlife managers track and manage Montana’s wolves.