Living with Wolves 2

Living with Wolves 2

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Rancher Bill Davis and his herd of cattle live with wolves in their midst. Since 1996, Davis has had over 40 confirmed cattle deaths due to wolves. Davis and other livestock ranchers in the west central mountains of Idaho recently met with USDA APHIS officials for discussion and updates. Wolf numbers, control methods and government red tape in dealing with depredation claims and payments dominated the conversation. “I’m going to say that most of what we saw here today was not true and is their own damn fault.” Davis says livestock owners are partly to blame for lack of more accurate data used to manage and address problems with wolves. “Because we don’t, as cattlemen, understand what we have to do to know how many cattle that we have killed by wolves. I’ve done it myself. I have ignored the signs and not looked at cattle that have died and assumed they died of something else. You’ve got to get up and use your knife because more often than not these cattle will be intact. There it is, the trauma on the legs of these cattle that have died from a wolf and you wouldn’t know it. Pretty soon you get to understand the signs. There is a wet area here where the calf went down. Hmmm better look at that. Get it out and skin it.” Ranchers say that only 10% of wolf kills are confirmed and as depredation losses mount, state and federal managers are taking a Band-Aid approach
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