Officials kill 4 cattle-eating wolves
By JOHN FITZGERALD
Of The Gazette Staff
Four wolves in the Red Lodge pack were shot to death in February after they killed a cow on a ranch near Belfry.
Ed Bangs, the wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Helena, said the four-member pack had killed several calves in the past year. In December, a rancher notified the service the pack had killed a cow. FWS decided to kill the pack in February.
He said most wolves are afraid of adult cattle and stay away from them. When they begin to take down adult cattle, it’s a sign they are losing their fear of the animals and will begin to include them in their regular diet. At this point, “you’re just better off getting rid of (the wolves),” Bangs said Wednesday.
He said game was plentiful for the pack. “They were not starving. They just decided to kill some cattle,” he said.
Bangs said the rancher has reported seeing two more wolves in the area since the Red Lodge pack was killed on February 24. He said he believed the pack consisted of only four members, so the new wolves could be unaccounted-for members of the pack, or wolves moving in to the newly open area.
The pack was killed after being lured into an open area and shot from a helicopter. Often, game officials like to recover the carcasses, but since three of the four wolves suffered from mange and the day was bitterly cold, the helicopter team decided to leave the wolves where they were, Bangs said.
According to the FWS Web site — http://westerngraywolf.fws.gov — since 1987 wolves have killed at least 593 sheep, 237 cattle, 57 dogs and 9 llamas. In response, FWS has killed 147 wolves and moved wolves 117 times.
“Any time you have large predators in an area, they will occasionally take livestock, and this is a burden to the individual producer,” Bangs said, so there are programs via private organizations that reimburse ranchers for lost livestock.
Bangs said he wasn’t sure if the Belfry rancher has applied for reimbursement. Calls to the ranch Wednesday were not returned.