Livingston area sheep farmer ungrateful at Defenders efforts to protect his sheep from the Lone Bear Pack.
Pack still under the gun.
The Lone Bear Pack has still not been entirely killed off by the government. The pack persists as 3 wolves, presently the Lone Bear alpha female, who has paired with the Sheep Mountain alpha male and an uncollared wolf. The government is still trying to kill them, but high winds probably stopped matters for today. Most folks who know the Livingston area, know about the winds there. The pack lives mostly on Canyon Mountain and adjacent areas at the northern end of the Gallatin Range and down into the NW corner of Paradise Valley.
I would say these wolves have killed over 45 sheep this year as well as some goats. See my earlier story, "Lone Bear Pack near Livingston is slated to all be killed after too many attacks on sheep."
Unfortunately, most of it could have been avoided, and Defenders of Wildlife put up a huge effort at fencing and pens for the sheep at night, but the sheep farmer seemed inconsolable and told Defenders not to come back after Suzanne Stone of Defenders tried to explain the situation in a Letter to the Editor to the Livingston Gazette. In my view, Defenders is one patient group. It's probably best I'm not making decisions on compensation and so forth because much less would be given. Nevertheless, the fences and pens are up and local folks will be aware if the farmer isn't using them.
These 3 remaining wolves seem pretty well conditioned to killing livestock on private land and probably need to be killed, but events don't engender easy sympathy for the farmer. See:
"Rancher boots wildlife group off sheep farm." By Scott McMillion. Bozeman Chronicle Staff Writer. Dec. 9.
The Paradise Valley is a natural wildlife corridor from Yellowstone, so wolves will soon be in the area again. Hopefully attitudes will change. I understand in Paradise Valley there are fewer problem farms than the fingers on your hand -- farms that don't take measures to protect their livestock.
Update 12-23-2004- This today from Ed Bang's in the weekly gray wolf report. "Lethal control for the Phantom and Lone Bear packs continues in SW Montana. Agency control was postponed for the big game rifle hunting season and has been further delayed by constant high winds along the mountains."
Note: they have been trying to control the Phantom Pack it seems for about 6 months now.
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