Wolf Attacks

Wolf Attacks. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

It seems almost like a bad horror movie. An intruder attacks your family and you have to stand by and just let it happen. You are powerless to help or retaliate. That is how ranchers are feeling when it comes to wolf attacks. Rancher Tommy Allen says recent attacks near Weston, Oregon on cattle have neighbors concerned.

ALLEN: I’ve got a hundred head of yearlings out there right next to him. That’s kind of a concern for me. But also a quarter mile away there’s sheep that were attacked earlier this year and he’s my neighbor, too.

Loss of one of these cows is an 11 to $12-hundred dollar loss in revenue for a rancher who really cannot do much to protect their herds.

ALLEN: The problem is they attack at night; they attack early in the morning. They’re not seen that often. I’ve never seen them up there but the neighbors have seen them in my pasture, walking across it. They’re all over. They’re down a few miles out of town. They run all the way to Walla Walla. It’s amazing how many are actually are out there.

There are a lot of public recreation facilities in the area as well and wolves are becoming much braver around people. Allen says it is almost impossible to protect his cattle from attacks.

ALLEN: Basically there is nothing that you can do. I can’t be up there full time checking my livestock. If it happens, it happens and I have to hope that I can get up there within a few days to find the carcass before they drag it off like the neighbor happened. You really can’t start taking measures until they’ve attacked or harassed your livestock four different times before you can really start looking into other options. So your hands are tied. You have to sit there on your hands and hope that you don’t get hit.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.