Yellowstone wolves kill calf staked out in front of house
By SCOTT McMILLION, Chronicle Staff Writer
LIVINGSTON — A young calf on the edge of Yellowstone National Park has been killed by wolves.
The dead animal was 3 to 4 weeks old, said Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The calf had been put out, alone and at night, in an area famous for abundant predators.
Its owner discovered the kill at 4 a.m. Thursday, Bangs said Friday.
“The calf was dead and wolves were on it,” Bangs said. The owner had the calf “staked out on a picket about 100 yards from the house.”
Four wolves were on the animal. Two stood and looked at its owner for a while and two ran away, Bangs said.
The property directly abuts the park’s northern line, on the west side of the Yellowstone River northwest of Gardiner.
Bangs said the calf was killed by members of the Swan Lake pack, which rarely leaves the park. No action against the wolves is planned.
“We don’t do wolf control for revenge,” Bangs said. “We do wolf control to fend off problems.”
Since the property owner has no other livestock on his small acreage, there are no other problems there to avoid, Bangs said.
He did not name the property owner. Other sources identified him as Bob Beede, who owns a riverside lodge. In the past he has proposed dredging the Yellowstone River for gold.
He did not return calls to his home Friday.
If the calf’s owners want to raise livestock there, they should look into installing some kind of fencing, Bangs said. Existing programs can help with that work.
Bangs said he had no evidence to indicate anybody had been trying intentionally to bait wolves or other predators. But he agreed that picketing a prey animal is a common way of doing that around the world.
“That’s how you hunt Bengal tigers,” he said. “Stake out a goat and let it bleat.”
The landowner would have been within his rights to shoot the wolves if he had caught them killing the calf, Bangs said. He also likely will be compensated for the calf’s value by the environmental group, Defenders of Wildlife.
Unless there is some indication that baiting occurred, Defenders probably will pay, said Suzanne Stone, northern Rockies representative for Defenders.
“From what I’ve seen so far, it doesn’t look like intentional baiting,” said Stone, but staking out a young animal among so many predators “probably wasn’t the best decision to make.”
“A dog could have gotten it,” she said. “Or a lion, a bear, or a coyote or anything.”
Last week, a motel owner in Gardiner came home to find one of his domestic ducks had been killed. He said he suspected a wolf, because somebody reported seeing one nearby.
“It could be, but who knows?” Bangs said of the duck slaying.
Wolves often frequent the edges of Gardiner.
Doug Smith, head of the wolf project inside the park, said the Swan Lake pack has never killed livestock before and rarely leaves the park. Past sorties have all been in the winter, he said.
“This late-April thing is really odd,” he said.
Of 11 wolves in the pack, six wear radio collars, he said.