Why the time change? Wolves.
On Monday, about a dozen people helped Gittleson trudge through the deep snow to put up 3 miles of fladry around a pasture near his ranch house. The thin electric fencing with flags that wave in the wind was erected to deter a nearby wolfpack that killed one pregnant heifer at the ranch, injured another badly enough it had to euthanized and killed a calf in the early morning hours over the last five weeks.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife confirmed the kills as well as that of a working cattle dog on an adjacent ranch.
Gittleson and his wife, Kim, received help from neighboring ranchers and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services in Fort Collins, which also brought four propane canons that fire at timed intervals to scare the wolves.
Talk among those who put up the fladry as a first line of defense likened it to applying a Band-Aid to a serious wound.
"Everything we are doing now is temporary, so hopefully we can find some things that are more than temporary,'' Gittleson said in the middle of one of his cattle pens on Monday. "It really depends on the wolves how long this works. I've heard a few weeks, 60 days and 90 days. Hopefully we get at least 60 days.''...MORE
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