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Email: timberwolfinfonetwork@gmail.com
Email: timberwolfinfonetwork@gmail.com

WA: Sheriff’s office investigates wolf attacks

By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press

MOSES LAKE, Wash. — Stevens County Sheriff Kendle Allen showed a series of photographs of calves and cows that had been killed by wolves, pointing out the distinctive evidence that proves how they died.

Members of the Stevens County sheriff’s office have learned to investigate livestock deaths the same way they probe murders and other crimes, he said. They look at all of the evidence, including the wounds and the surroundings.

He and several deputies have gone through state Department of Fish and Wildlife training to learn to identify a wolf attack. But the photos of wolf kills that he showed Cattle Producers of Washington members at their Oct. 26 meeting were “far better” than anything they saw in training, he said.

“(We) have as much expertise in figuring out what’s a wolf attack and what’s not than anybody who works for the game department,” Allen said.

However, Allen and his deputies may determine a wolf attack was a likely cause of a cow’s death, but wildlife officers have to take the information back to a panel “of people that were never there, who have never actually seen a wolf depredation in their life,” to make a determination, he said.

According to the department, a review panel of predator experts from WDFW, USDA Wildlife Services and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, including experts from other western states with wolves, is convened. WDFW investigators then review the case, and panel members ask questions and offer additional comments.

“Wolves are new to this state,” Mitch Friedman, executive director of nonprofit corporation Conservation Northwest. “My understanding from the writing of experts in the Rockies is it takes a lot of experience to identify a wolf kill.”

Friedman cited wolf expert Carter Niemeyer’s position that 90 percent of suspected kills are wrongly attributed to wolves.

Wolves typically attack the hind quarters of an animal, under the rear leg and under the front legs, Allen said. Cougars are stealthy and will lie in wait before attacking, but wolf packs will run an animal until it becomes exhausted and gives up. Wolves attack from behind and are messy eaters, and will scatter the animal they’re eating for hundreds of yards.

The longer it takes to find a dead animal, the less chance there is to prove it was killed by wolves, Allen said.

“There’s wolf predation, and there’s a wolf finding it dead and eating on it,” he said. “What you have to prove is that the wolf actually killed it.”

Allen recommended against moving a dead calf, since officials will look for insect activity, prints and scat in the area.

Stevens County Cattlemen’s Association President Scott Nielsen advised ranchers who suspect wolf depredation to have an agency like the sheriff’s office provide oversight, keep the department accountable and protect the property owner.

Attorney Toni Meacham, executive director of the Washington Agricultural Legal Foundation, held up a large pink notebook holding the important parts of her Freedom of Information Act request to the state.

Meacham credited the county association’s and sheriff’s response for the reasons Wedge wolf pack attacks were confirmed on the Diamond M Ranch in Laurier, Wash.

“We can’t move forward and say there’s wolf kills if we don’t have incident reports that say ‘Confirmed kills,'” she said.

Friedman said Conservation Northwest is working to provide resources to reduce conflict between wolves and ranchers.

“From now until forever, we’re all going to be here together,” Friedman said. “Let’s figure out how to reduce the risk of conflict rather than how to react to it.”

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