Don Jenkins
Capital Press
Wolves have killed three cows and one calf in Stevens County in northeast Washington. Ranchers call for lethal removal.
Stevens County ranchers are calling on Washington state wildlife managers to take lethal action to deter wolves in the Dirty Shirt pack, which has now claimed three adult cows and a calf.
“I think when there are four dead cows, the department should have initiated removal by now,” Stevens County Cattlemen’s Association Vice President Scott Nielsen said Monday.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife reported 10 days ago that the pack, known to have six members, had killed two cows on a U.S. Forest Service grazing allotment in northeastern Washington. The agency has not disclosed details of the discovery of a third cow and a calf from the same herd killed by wolves, though sources say the department confirmed the depredations.
The cattlemen’s association Monday posted a statement on its website reporting that the depredations occurred on or before July 10.
“We know that wolf attacks on livestock can only be stopped by immediately removing the offending wolves before the behavior spreads to the whole pack,” the association’s president, Justin Hedrick, said in a written statement.
Efforts to reach WDFW officials Monday were unsuccessful.
Shawn Cantrell, Defenders of Wildlife’s Northwest director, said it’s too early for WDFW to consider shooting wolves.
Cantrell, a member of the department’s wolf advisory group, said the depredations occurred before WDFW put range riders in the area to haze Dirty Shirt wolves away from the herd.
The department’s policy demands for multiple depredations to occur after non-lethal measures have been employed before it will authorize shooting wolves.
Considering lethal removal now “seems, A, unnecessary, and, B, inappropriate, given the fact these other tools are working,” Cantrell said.
Nielsen said non-lethal measures such as range riders, flags and loud music won’t protect grazing livestock over a large landscape.
“We are talking about thousands and thousands of acres,” he said.
WDFW reported the producer, who was grazing 166 cattle before depredations, has moved the herd. Nielsen said that other ranchers are grazing in the pack’s territory. Even if the wolves are hazed from the area, they will find cows wherever they go, he said.
“It doesn’t matter which way you chase them, you’re chasing them to somebody’s cows,” Nielsen said. “Stevens County is virtually blanketed with livestock. We graze everywhere.”
To stop the Huckleberry pack from preying on a sheep herd in Stevens County last year, WDFW authorized lethal removal of up to four wolves. The agency suspended the hunt after one wolf was shot because the sheep were no longer in the pack’s territory.
WDFW killed seven members of the Wedge Pack in 2012 after the department concluded its members were targeting livestock over natural prey in Stevens County.