Stockgrowers discuss coexisting with wolves
By Jason Lehmann, Enterprise Staff Writer
The
wolves are here — you might as well learn to live
with them.
That
is essentially what ranchers and other landowners were told
during a meeting Monday night, April 21, at the Park County
Fairgrounds main exhibit building.
The
meeting, “How to Live with Wolves in Your Backyard,”
brought together Park County ranchers who have lost cattle
and wolf experts from several government agencies for a panel discussion with the public.
The
ranchers agreed that wolves have caused more than their
fair share of headaches. Most of them lost cattle to wolves.
Others had wolves roaming their property, threatening cattle.
Ironically,
the more wolves there are in Park County, the more options
ranchers and other landowners will have to deal with them,
said Kurt Alt, a wildlife manager with Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks.
If wolves
are removed from the endangered species list and put under
state management, that means population numbers are high
enough to “give ranchers the flexibility” to
hunt or trap wolves suspected of killing livestock, Alt
said.
But
that won’t happen until wolves are delisted.
“If
we’re too close to relisting, we won’t have
the flexibility we want (to manage the wolves),” Alt
said.
Ed Bangs,
wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, said traditional means of deterring wolves from
killing livestock — relocation and monitoring by radio
collar — are becoming less successful than just killing
the wolves.
“Pretty
much now we’re using lethal control. Eventually the
problem stops because you run out of wolves,” Bangs
said.
Paradise
Valley rancher Martin Davis, also on the board of the Park
County Conservation District, agreed with Bangs’ assessment.
Several
years ago, Davis found a “rendezvous point,”
a spot where wolf pups are raised, near his cattle.
Noisemakers
and strobe lights placed near the rendezvous point by FWP
were ineffective, so Davis “spent the summer with
wolves and cows” living near each other.
None
of Davis’ cattle were killed by the wolves, but later,
he found six wolves surrounding several cattle.
“Had
we not been there that night, we’d of lost them —
I’m confident of that,” Davis said.
Randy
Petrich, another Paradise Valley rancher, has had a number
of calves run over by cows spooked by wolves.
“They
cause a lot of stress on the livestock. You can tell when
they (wolves) have been in and around the cattle,”
Petrich said to the audience.
“Thankfully,
(U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) issued kill permits. We’ve
been able to harvest a few wolves, and it seems like the
rest are getting kind of skittish,” he said.
Bangs
told ranchers to call FWP or USFWS if they see wolves killing
or harassing livestock.
“They
don’t kill cattle more often (than wild game) —
it’s surprising how little cattle they eat because
it’s pretty risky business for them. But once they
start, they get better at it,” Bangs said.