Life on the Range: Unforeseen impacts caused by wolves in Idaho

More than 20 years after wolves were reintroduced in Idaho, Idaho ranchers have been surprised to experience a host of issues related to wolves killing or stressing livestock that no one expected or had heard about before. Direct predation of livestock was expected to occur, but no one knew, for instance, that range cattle spooked by wolves would attack herding dogs, an essential ranching tool that’s been used for more than 100 years to herd livestock. “What now happens is you send your dog into a meadow after cows have been tormented daily by wolves, the cattle, especially the young cattle, will come at your dog, run at your dog, and try to kill your dog,” said Robin Brown, owner of Broken Circle Border Collies in Indian Valley. Brown is a professional dog trainer. She has seen first hand how wolves can change the dynamic between herding dogs and cattle. Ranchers pay good money for trained herding dogs — often more than $5,000 per dog. Once cattle have been spooked by wolves repeatedly, ranchers can’t use their dogs to herd cattle, she said. Instead, the ranchers have to hire extra range riders at a rate of $120 per day, if they can find them. Each herding dog can equal the value of three range riders. The impacts of stressed livestock are something that ranchers are experiencing in wolf range across the state of Idaho, north of I-84, where a minimum estimated a population of 800 of 1,000 wolves reside. “The trouble is, when you have a pack of wolves in the area, they’re continually putting pressure on those cattle,” OX Ranch manager Casey Anderson said. “So the cattle aren’t using the range the way they did in the past, and to the goals that we have set to be good stewards of the resource. They’re always feel fearful for their lives, that they’re under attack, heads aren’t down eating, they keep getting thinner, they’re not utilizing the area they have to feed in.”...MORE