Wolves Living with Livestock

 This emotional back and forth over wolves will probably never go away as long as there are wolves and as long as humans and their businesses exist in overlapping territories. There are even web sites that have been developed citing statistics to try and set the record straight about the threat of wolves to livestock. Ed Bangs, a Fish and Game expert asks that before people get too emotional over this issue…they look at the facts. “The issue of wolf depredation on livestock is worldwide. The two land mammals with the greatest natural distribution on earth are wolves and people. So all over the world, wolves and people mix. When you mix people, their livestock and wolves, their reaction is absolutely predictable. Wolves occasionally kill livestock, just like black bears and coyotes and mountain lions, and if you’re a livestock producer, wolves could cost you money. From an industry perspective, wolf depredation is so small it is absolutely insignificant. Very few people ever have trouble with wolves, even in wolf habitat. But, if it’s your calf being killed, it’s a big deal. That’s why we’re so aggressive with wolves that learn to attack livestock at getting rid of those few animals and last year we actually killed 250 wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains because they started recognizing that livestock could be killed and they’re good to eat.”