Wolf Stampede

Mack Birkmaier, a cattleman from Oregon wrote in his local paper about a stampede that was caused by wolves from the Umatilla pack. Apparently a herd of cattle, many of them pregnant, was wintering on grass range in February when they were attacked by wolves. Birkmaier claimed that no one was warned by any agency about the fact that wolves were in the area. At any rate, when the wolves attacked the herds split up into three separate groups. One of the groups comprised of 70 cows headed east on a dead run and blew through several barbed wire fences. A second group of cows headed north and encountered the same thing… Barbed wire fences which they ran through in total fear and panic. The third group stayed in the pasture. As it turned out, none of the stampeding cattle were killed or badly injured. But the rancher, in telling his story, did point out that a lot of the cows were pregnant. That point, made at the beginning of his story, did not go unnoticed. His primary fear, obviously, was that come calving time there could be serious repercussions due to the immense and intense stress that the cattle experienced from being attacked.

 

“On Wednesday they called me and told me there was about a 10 inch round chunk out of the back of a cow. About three days before the wolf attack on my cow, I believe there were seven sheep that were killed within 2 miles of where the cow was attacked. They are getting to be a pretty big problem in that area. It is the Umatilla pack.” Those are the words coming from rancher Mark Lane after learning that wolves had attacked his herd.