{Intro from Cat: Last week, a wolf tried to get into a flock of yearling sheep on the mountain, and ended up in a brawl with six guardian dogs. Although the wolf was injured, it escaped without succeeding in killing any sheep. If it lives, I’m hoping it learned a valuable lesson. A couple of …
Tag: Ranching
Retiring Old Mama
The last few years, we’ve been working Old Mama into retirement. She’s a fine old dog that has traveled many, many miles accompanying her flocks from the low desert to the high mountains each year. We gradually placed her with flocks following shorter trails, and finally stopped allowing her to trail to winter range a …
The Predation Crisis
Central Asian Arrivals
Mountain Counts
A range flock of domestic sheep exits the mountains in the southern Wind River Range of western Wyoming. Before the flock begins its slow movement to lower elevations, herders needed a head count. But how do you count thousands of sheep with only two men? It’s fairly simple. Range sheep have strong flocking instincts, and …
Escort
Another Wind River Poem
From Tim: Wind River Justice Alan riding his first horse from Big Sandy to celebrate his thirty-seventh birthday: his mare reared in the lodgepoles when a spruce grouse flushed and nearly pitched him down a switchback. My own gelding stampeded through a meadow, and our young wrangler called those ponies “gentled.” We braved Pyramid’s boulders, …
Wolves, Brucellosis, & Elk
Wolves have blown elk off western Wyoming’s elk feedgrounds on numerous occasions – it’s something that we’ve come to expect with Wyoming’s protected wolf population. Jim and I learned about the 19 elk that had been killed in one night by a wolf pack on an elk feedground in the northern portion of the county …
Old Mama
She’s not much to look at, some cross between livestock guardian dog breeds. Born on the range to working guardians, she’s lived all her 10+ years of life there, migrating with the flocks from the sagebrush-covered low country in winter, to the high country of the Wind River Mountains as the flocks move for summer …
Playing with Food
Because sometimes it’s fun to play with your food – a coyote in western Wyoming this morning.