Amanda Radke
Calving season is challenging enough for ranchers who must contend with cold weather and blizzards, but add in predators, like the gray wolf, and keeping new calves safe is a losing battle. “I have had trouble for many years with wolves, but the worst year was when they took one-fourth of my calf crop — I was 26 calves short,” said Joe Wilebski, a rancher from northern Minnesota in Kittson County, located just a mile from the Canadian border. “I had three different federal trappers in. First they caught an 84-lb. wolf, and then they caught 103-lb. alpha and things settled down a little bit after that.” Before enlisting professional help, Wilebski had tried everything within the confines of the law to protect his cattle from the gray wolf, which is federally protected under the Endangered Species Act. “Over the years, we’ve tried donkeys, radios and flashing lights to ward the wolves off, but nothing seemed to work until the trappers caught the alpha,” said Wilebski. “They estimated there were 12-15 wolves in the pack near our ranch.” On June 25, Wilebski drove five hours to Brainerd, Minn. to testify before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s only public hearing regarding the U.S. Department of Interior’s proposal to end federal protection for nearly all gray wolves in the lower 48 states. “The reason we keep species listed is because we want to protect species from going extinct. Wolves are not even close to that,” said Lori Nordstrom, an assistant regional director with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “They’re doing very well in the Great Lakes region, and they’re also expanding out west.”...MORE
No comments:
Post a Comment