Are Idaho Wolves getting fond of beef?
10-25-98
Here is a link to an article by Candice Burns, a reporter from Salmon, Idaho, about the the attacks by Idaho wolves on cattle this summer. It is entitled "Wolves exact a toll on central Idaho cattle herds: Reintroduced predator developing a fondness for beef." It appeared in Intermountain Farm and Ranch in September. Looks like this publication has disappeared from on-line (added 7-4-99).
Did Idaho wolves kill an undue number of livestock this summer? I guess that depends on your point of view. If even one dead calf or cow is intolerable, the wolves were ten times big and bad because that killed about ten head. Most important, however, was all of these depredations took place near the Salmon and Challis areas, two isolated central Idaho places with long-standing anti-conservation, anti-government attitudes. Challis is a small town. Salmon is a bigger town, but they are a tiny fraction of Idaho. They do get an extraordinary amount of attention from Idaho politicians, however, and always have. See my earlier article "We don't whine in Pocatello."
In terms of the absolute number of livestock attacked in Idaho, however, numbers have been small. In 1997 one wolf killed a whole bunch of sheep, but that was about it. This year it was two packs all told killing perhaps a dozen calves and cows. Of course, the owners have or will be compensated for depredations proved and 50% for those that were "likely." Interestingly, Burns' article doesn't mention the compensation.
As the article states:
In 1995, coyotes killed 100 cows and 800 calves in Idaho, according to statistics from the Idaho Department of Agriculture. Dogs killed another 100 cows and 400 calves. There are no specific statistics for mountain lion depredations in Idaho, but nationwide mountain lions killed more than 8,000 cows and calves in 1995, while bears killed 1,800 the same year. According to the same statistics wolves killed 2,500 head of cattle nationwide in 1995, the year that wolves were reintroduced in Idaho. Those depredations likely occurred in Minnesota where wolves now number 2,500, said Mark Collinge of Wildlife Services in Boise.
The real difference in Idaho this year, in my opinion, was the depredations took place in a area with excitable political elites.
Representative Lenore Barrett of Challis is quoted “Plenty of us, when the wolves were first dropped, said this was going to happen. Now we all we can say is, ‘I told you so.’ Wolves have to eat, too. And the more of them there are, the more they’ll eat.”
In a separate article, Barrett was recently quoted as saying the proposed grizzly bear reintrocution to central Idaho amounted to "genocide."
Barrett was recently recognized by an environmental group as one of the two most anti-environmental state legislators in Idaho. Read her latest opinion in the Post Register.
A personal story about her and the politicos in the area. . . It was about four years ago that new Idaho U.S. Representative Mike Crapo held meetings in his congressional district to try and settle the long-standing Idaho wilderness designation controversy. I was invited to attend three meetings, and I thought things had gone relatively well with contending parties willing to gave and take. Then we went to Salmon. At that meeting, Barrett went out of her way to insult conservation representatives including myself. She told us to get jobs and implied we were dirty hippies and/or Sun Valley, Idaho "trustfunders." Other folks at the meeting from Salmon insulted us and went out of their way to invent conflicts where none existed. Later my job was threatened by these folks.
This was not the only such event, however, In the late 1970s when the reclassification of the Idaho Primitive Area was underway, a congressional hearing was held in Salmon. Since it was very important hearing (they didn't bother to have one in Pocatello, the second largest city in Idaho), a lot of folks travelled to the reputed anti-wilderness stronghold. They were greeted with a sign "Charles Manson was an environmentalist." But that didn't deter folks, and we carried the day. When all was said and done, even a majority from Salmon testified in favor or what was to become the Frank Church Wilderness, indicating to me that there may be suppressed pro-conservation majority in the area.
I never heard anything more about congressman Crapo's wilderness consensus process after that meeting in 1994. Two years ago I told him at the "Wild Idaho" conference I would never participate in any more such meetings to resolve these issues.
During the last generation, there have been many other similar meetings which I won't recount now, but the outcome was similar -- afterword attitudes were worse, not better.
After twenty years trying I decided, it's just not worth it to meet with people who have such a different world view. While I think talking and finding common ground is almost always a good idea, there comes a point when once you get to know them, you find out that the other side is worse than you thought.
Perhaps a younger generation will somehow find common ground.
Ralph Maughan
Pocatello, Idaho
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