Wolf Kills Explain Odd Cattle Deaths
Many wolf depredations are undocumented.
On Sept. 3, 2015, a workshop in Cambridge, Idaho, was titled Preventing Wolf Depredation in Idaho: Management with an Emphasis on Non-lethal Methods, sponsored by USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) Wildlife Services, Idaho Department of Fish and Game, and the Idaho Office of Species Conservation. Presentations were given by the government agencies, followed by several ranchers who basically said non-lethal methods don’t work. Phil Davis, a rancher near Cascade, Idaho, was one of those ranchers.
Davis says the numbers of wolf depredations sounded rosy because documented depredations are low, yet three ranchers shared their own contradictory experience with wolves.
“I said that maybe their documented numbers were way down, but it’s because we as producers don’t understand what we need to look for. If the animal is intact, most ranchers just assume it died of something else (bloat, larkspur poisoning, disease, etc.) and don’t bother to skin it out to discover the bruising under the skin. More often than not, the cattle killed in our area from July on are left intact,” he says.
Adult wolves are teaching their pups how to kill, or killing just for sport. They are harassing and chasing the cattle — running them to exhaustion, nipping at them.
Scott Nicholson, one of Davis’ neighbors, lost several cattle this summer at his summer range at Donley and Cascade before he realized they were wolf kills.
He has been dealing with wolf-killed cattle for 10 years. He’s found kills that were fully eaten, half eaten, or even just found blood and hair or a hoof or an ear.
“Now the wolves are just killing the cattle and not eating them. This year I’ve lost 11 cows and six calves and buried them. They weren’t old, sick or crippled; they were just lying there dead and we couldn’t figure out what was going on,” Nicholson says. In visiting with the state trapper, he learned that Phil Davis had lost two animals under the same circumstances. That prompted him to dig up one of the animals they had buried after it died and skin the carcass.
“That was the sickest feeling I’ve had in my life,” Nicholson says, “because that animal was nothing but bites, with bruising and bleeding under the skin.”
The injuries were not apparent from the outside, as the wolves didn’t rip the skin, he continues. “When we skinned one of the hindquarters and one front shoulder, there were at least 100 bites on the hind end and at least 75 bites on the front end. That’s when I realized this probably happened to at least 90% of the other animals I lost. They were all perfectly healthy, just lying there dead.”
Nicholson adds that despite 17 dead cattle, only one was confirmed as a wolf kill because they skinned it three days after burying it. Ranchers should confirm every kill they can, partly because they may get compensation for the losses, and partly to have more accurate statistics on how many cattle are actually being killed by wolves. Most farmers and ranchers are not familiar with what to look for and what to do, so many depredations are going undocumented.
“One of my neighbors lost three cows this year. He just found them dead, and couldn’t figure it out. If it hadn’t been for Phil Davis, I would still be just burying them, too. We need to educate producers about what to look for,” Nicholson says.
He adds, “Last year I lost seven calves and the wolves ate part of them. Two years before that, in 2012, we lost nine calves and it was always a heifer calf, and the only thing they’d eat was the vulva. They were teaching their pups how to kill. Cattle are vulnerable and easy to kill, especially if they are confined in a pasture.” The wolves get them cornered and they can’t get away.
Editor’s Note: Heather Smith Thomas is a freelance writer and cattlewoman from Salmon, Idaho.