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 …
Tag: Wolves
The Predation Crisis
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 …
What Happens When A Breeding Wolf Is Killed
“Lethal Control of Wolves Provides No Benefit to Livestock” “Why A Ravening Wolf is a Sheep’s Best Friend” Those were the headlines yesterday, as media outlets continue to hype a flawed Washington State University research paper that I panned over on Wolf Watch. The WSU researchers noted that through a certain time period: 1) the …
Guardian Dogs & Wolves in the Alps
The Two Sides of Wolves as Comedy
As enacted by a younger Lane B, who I am sure will have something to say…
Wolf Miscellany
I think there is an unstated human obsession with wolves, perhaps because they contain in essence both the genes of our species’ best animal friend, and the age -old simultaneous rep as humankind’s most visible enemy. Here are a few recent instances. I have always heard the some of the big Central Asian flock protection …
Why We Need Wildlife Services
USDA Wildlife Services – the federal animal damage control agency – has come under increased attack by those who want to shut this agency (which Defenders of Wildlife calls “the hit-man for hire arm of the USDA”), and I want to weigh in after two decades of working fairly closely with the agency in western …
Of Livestock, Predators, & Guardians
This summer, our sheep have been grazing a series of private pastures in the foothills of the southern Wind River Mountains – pastures that have been used by domestic sheep herds for more than 100 years. This small herd is protected by the three burros that are always present, and by livestock guardian dogs. The …
Range Sheep & Big Predators
I am weary of the snide, ignorant, and vicious comments made in response to last week’s death of 176 sheep due to a wolf attack in eastern Idaho (see stories here and here). Some of the sheep were directly bitten and killed, but the majority of the animals were killed in a stampeding pileup as …