By Scotta Callister Blue Mountain Eagle
(Part One of a series – See more coverage in Special Sections-Wolves at the Door)
JOHN DAY – Grant County ranchers last week got a glimpse of the future: living with wolves.
“We are in the process of sharing our wolves with the rest of the state,” Wallowa County Extension agent John Williams said at a Dec. 8 meeting in John Day.
The Grant County Stockgrowers invited Williams and rancher Todd Nash to relate their experiences from Wallowa County, Oregon’s primary portal for inmigrating wolves. The meeting drew about 60 people, mostly ranchers, to Keerins Hall on the fairgrounds in John Day.
Williams noted that the wolves that moved in from Idaho several years ago have been reproducing, and the 2- and 3-year-olds are dispersing to find new homes.
Unfortunately, he added, “the wolves we’re sharing, are wolves that have learned to kill livestock. And once they get a taste for it, that’s what they want.”
Williams updated the progress of a couple of recent travelers. OR-7, a young male, recently roamed to Southern Oregon and is believed to be settling near Crater Lake National Park. Another disperser, OR-3, moved west to Wheeler County this year and was last detected north of Prineville – with a partner, he said.
He and Nash said Wallowa County ranchers began reporting livestock losses to wolves in 2009, but confirmation of kills has been controversial. In many cases, with state and federal wildlife agents disagreeing in many cases.
Williams said that in 2010 alone, the Wallowa County ranchers tallied 33 calves missing, nine cows missing, 11 confirmed calf kills and two confirmed cow kills.
Meanwhile, Oregon’s wolf plan limits the response by ranchers. If they see a wolf chasing or tracking livestock, they can try to scare it off – fire shots in the air, make noise, or confront the wolf – but not hurt it. If wolf activity becomes persistent, producers step up the harassment – but only with a permit, and only in certain, verified circumstances.
A couple of people at last week’s meeting asked about lethal response, with one suggesting that a “.30-06 bullet is the answer.” However, the speakers warned against an illegal “shoot, shovel and shut up” response.
Wolves in Oregon are protected by the state endangered species act and, west of Highway 395, by the federal endangered species act.
“I don’t want to hear about citizens in the state of Oregon going to jail for shooting wolves,” said Williams. The situation in wolf communities is emotionally charged already, he said, and seeing a neighbor jailed for shooting a wolf would only make things more difficult.
Other ranchers suggested that with wolves here or on the way, the focus should be on finding a way to live with this new challenge.
What to do
Nash and Williams offered tips, urging the ranchers to:
• Carry a camera to document any kills, suspicious injuries or tracks.
• Take notes and keep records – of cow numbers, animal weights, locations, time spent checking cows, and any efforts to ward off wolves through nonlethal means.
• Be alert for odd activity in the herd: nervous behavior, signs of stress, unusual patterns of movement.
Nash also said to watch for “tight-bagged” cows – a sign that its calf is missing. Traditional signs of predation – the presence of crows, magpies, eagles and other carrion feeders – also are clues.
• If a cow or calf is found dead of a suspected wolf attack, follow certain protocols. Notify the sheriff, who will contact wildlife officials – either the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife or U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services. Cover the carcass to protect it from scavengers, who might destroy the signs of predation, and stay away from the site as much as possible to avoid contaminating the evidence.
Williams also urged county officials to get ready for wolf issues. Under a new law enacted by the legislature, counties that want to see compensation for their ranchers must set up a committee that includes one commissioner, two ranchers, two wolf reintroduction supporters, and two business people. The county needs to establish procedures to deal with wolf kill confirmation and compensation issues, he said.
What to expect
Williams noted an ongoing research project that is examining wolf-livestock interactions on six ranches in two states. The research is confirming many of the things “cowboys already know” about wolves, but documentation is important as the data will help guide decisions about wolf management, he said.
He and Nash shared some information about wolf behavior they’ve gleaned from research and personal experience.
Nash’s first brush with wolf depredation was in May 2010, when he went out to check his cows in the pasture. He saw a tight-bagged cow and couldn’t locate her calf. On a second trip to the field, he found remains of the calf.
He followed the protocol, calling Wallowa County Sheriff Fred Steen, who called in wildlife officials to investigate.
“It’s important to set it up as a crime scene,” he said, urging that Grant County residents work with their sheriff, Glenn Palmer, in the same way.
Williams said wolf kills can be difficult to prove – sometimes the carcass is never found. In others, parts of the carcass or stripped bones may be left.
Wolves don’t always discriminate between meat and hide, Nash said – “they’ll eat it all.”
The two men said a mark of wolf depredation may be the fierceness of the attack. A body may have legs missing or pulled out of the hip socket.
“Wolves have tremendous jaw strength – 650 pounds of jaw strength per square inch. A grizzly bear has 450 pounds,” Nash said.
In some depredation cases, the cow survives – at least for a time. The worst scene so far for Nash was the discovery of an attack on an 8-year-old 1,450-pound heifer owned by a neighbor. The wolves “took the calf right out of her while she was still alive,” Nash said.
The cow, downed and severely wounded, had to be shot.
The costs
Nash and Williams stressed that production losses go beyond the death of a cow or two. For ranchers, the most serious impacts may show in the temperament of the herd. With wolf presence, cows may become unmanageable, lose weight, abort their calves or suffer from respiratory distress, he said.
If the cows become aggressive toward cattle dogs, that’s another tip-off that the problem is wolves.
All of these impacts are costly, but can also be hard to pin on wolves. That makes compensaton iffy, at best.
“The real big issue in compensation is that only one in eight animals (killed) ever gets found,” said Williams. “And remember, losses are the smallest part of your costs in dealing with wolves.”
Elsewhere
Williams said people question why Canada’s had wolves for years and the ranchers there seem to live with them, “so why can’t you?”
The difference, he said, is the way livestock attacks are handled in Canada. He said that when wolves kill livestock there, officials go after that wolf immediately.
“They track and kill that wolf and every wolf that’s with it,” he said. “They don’t allow that transfer of ‘let’s kill livestock.'”
Not all wolves develop a taste for livestock, he noted. He believes that as in Canada, Oregon needs to be able to kill some – strategically, leaving alone the ones that don’t go after livestock.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife recently issued a kill order for two problem wolves from the Imnaha pack, but environmental groups obtained a stay from an appellate commissioner to stop the action. The Oregon Cattlemen’s Association currently is considering a petition for reconsideration.