<!–
–>
A Washington state rancher says he was left “high and dry” when state wildlife managers called off a wolf hunt to protect his 1,800 sheep.
The cancellation forced Dave Dashiell of Hunters, Wash., to move his flock or risk more attacks by the wolves, which had already killed 24 animals.
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife managers had planned to kill four wolves from the Huckleberry pack but called off the helicopter hunt after one wolf was killed and pulled out trappers shortly after.
“We’re on pause right now, if something new develops — another series of depredations, perhaps even with a different producer and the same pack in neighboring areas — then we’ll reassess at that point,” department carnivore section manager Donny Martorello said.
A federal wildlife agent contracted by the state killed one adult female Aug. 23 from a helicopter. The helicopter hunt wasn’t as efficient as the department expected, Martorello said. The wolves were screened by thick trees or were on the Spokane Tribe of Indians reservation, where they couldn’t be killed. The department continued trapping until the start of the Labor Day weekend, then removed the traps because of the increase in recreational activities like camping and hunting in the area, he said.
The department still has the authority to kill more wolves in the vicinity of the sheep, Martorello said.
“Our ranch was left high and dry to try and handle the situation ourselves while at the same time having our hands tied due to the wolves’ state endangered species status,” Dashiell said in a Stevens County Cattlemen’s Association press release. Wolves in the area are protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Dashiell moved the sheep to a friend’s pasture, where they will stay until he can move them to a new grazing location far from the current site.
The department is working with Dashiell to determine his strategies for managing straggling sheep and will keep a range rider on the site, Martorello said.
The department is also communicating with other producers in the area.
“Having to make this kind of change in the middle of the summer has caused considerable stress, expense and hardship to our operation,” Dashiell said. “The grazing lease we had arranged with the private timber company was good until the middle of October and now we have to move our animals and try to find an alternate spot at the last minute.”
Martorello said there are no requirements in the department’s wolf management plan and protocols that producers move their livestock to alternate grazing sites to reduce conflict. It was an opportunity to break the pattern of repeated behavior, he said.
“In this particular case, with the producer nearing that period of time where they were moving sheep to a winter range, we wanted to work with the producer to see if we could expedite that process at all,” Martorello said. “We weren’t asking the producer to necessarily take a step he wasn’t going to take, but maybe to do that a little bit sooner.”
Dashiell has represented the Cattle Producers of Washington on the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife wolf advisory group.
“But in the end all of the talk did very little to help a person in my situation,” he stated. “The Huckleberry wolf pack needs to be removed, not our sheep. By making us leave we are only passing the problem along to others in the area when the wolf finds their pets, animals and livestock.”
<!–
–>
Exposing the Big Game 
This line perfectly sums up the attitude among ranchers that must change: “The Huckleberry wolf pack needs to be removed, not our sheep.” Wrong, all wrong.
Loss is 1.3% due to wolves and the sheep rancher had no other losses that aren’t brought up? 1800 loose sheep seem impossible to protect even with guard dogs and a shepherd.
“The Huckleberry wolf pack needs to be removed, not our sheep. By making us leave we are only passing the problem along to others in the area when the wolf finds their pets, animals and livestock.”
Which of course was the point of the entire exercise. They want the entire pack killed. They still don’t think they have to take steps to protect their own livestock, an unnatural addition to the landscape (as well as our pets that number in the millions), and moving them does not seem to be unreasonable to ask (and keeping our pets inside or watched doesn’t seem unreasonable either.)
Entire packs of wolves cannot continue to be wiped out at the order of ranchers. The Huckleberry pack I don’t think is considered an established pack under the state plan. I really don’t believe they were responsible for 24 sheep being lost either, it seems like an outrageous number. There comes a point when you have to ask why the rancher would allow so many sheep to be lost to predation and did nothing as the numbers started to add up – it’s the same as the Wedge pack, make up a big story as a reason for killing wolves.
As a taxpayer, I’d rather see money going to more range riders, herders and dogs than paying for killings. One herder and four guard dogs doesn’t seem nearly enough.
Actually, I understand your point but don’t agree that taxpayers should fund range riders, herders, and dogs (or killing!). Ranchers are profit-making entities, and protecting their flocks are part of the cost of doing business. I believe that because of the sanitized landscape that farmers and ranchers have become accustomed to — since government and private citizens have been waging a many-decades-long war on wildlife, especially predators — ranchers have adopted the attitude that their interests prevail and that they don’t have to bother looking after the animals they put out on the range. It’s just so much easier to kill anything that might eat their stock or their stock’s forage, especially since much of the cost is borne by the public agencies appointed to do the killing (state “game” agencies and U.S. Fish & Wildlife “Services”). It is a sense of very misplaced entitlement on the part of farmers and ranchers.
I have misgivings about our capitalist system, but since that is the system we are functioning under and which is worshiped and glorified by many, I am perfectly happy condemning farmers and ranchers to live by capitalist principles. If they can’t cover all their costs and make it financially, then they should go out of business. And the fact that ranchers are themselves in the killing industry and that abuses of “production” animals are widespread does little to inspire my sympathy for ranchers. Of course, you — like me — are familiar with the despicable governor of Idaho, rancher extraordinaire/horse slaughter advocate/dearest friend of ag/Mr. I’m-going-to-buy-the-first-wolf-tag-and-can’t-wait-to-use-it. Need I explain my contempt for ranchers any further?
Our national mindset though, at least for the foreseeable future, eats a hell of a lot of meat, and other animal products, and the providers are here to stay, with government protections that go as far back as the beginning of our nation and haven’t come in to the 21st century. I wish we’d all have the gumption to boycott these prima donnas, but of course we’re too anesthetized by trivial things to care, or we’ll do whatever we’re told because we need the money, and have no ethics.
They do not and probably will never see predators as part of the business they are in, when it was so easy to get rid of them, and receive protections from losses. Temporarily, at least, supporting or rewarding non-lethal methods of dealing with risk, like any other business, seems the only way to protect wolves.
As a taxpayer, I would like to see my money going to help the native wildlife, not the ranching moochers. http://www.foranimals.org
Now we find out the reason behind the stopping of the aerial shootings:
Washington State Accidentally On Purpose Shoots Alpha Wolf
Now they hope the pack will be broken up or destroyed. But yet that isn’t good enough for this rancher.
There is the usual entitlement thinking here of a rancher that public land is their land and that predators should be killed for them. He puts 1800 sheep with 4 guard dogs and a herder on rugged mountain land, that is really wolf and other predator baiting and it is a manifestation of never ending encroachment on the wild that has been going on from the beginning of farming and ranching. There are GOP efforts to accelerate to the wiping out point of this type of encroachment with efforts to turn federal lands over to state management which would soon mean the only semi-safe area for wolves and grizzlies and lions would be in designated wilderness areas and preserves. It is huge encroachment already with 23,000 grazing leases in 16 western states and then there are the oil and gas leases. Bison are pushed off public land back into the Park at rancher request or slaughtered. Wild horses are being taken off public land to make room for ranchers. Ranchers and hunters hate wolves. There are also republican, mostly, and states’ push to cut down major percentages of our national forests to put local rural communities back to (temporary) work. Besides the hunter-rancher led war on wildlife but related is habitat loss to ranching, extraction industries, and development. No habitat, no wildlife.
The only way to stop this massive wildlife killing across The West, is to STOP ALL Subsidies to these ranchers, and to remove all livestock from western public lands. These folk have gotten used to government handouts for decades, while polluting, destroying, killing. No more handouts. No more excuses. The latest reports now out on the major decline of our western National Forests is grim. And what is in these National Forests? Grazing, along with other destructive human activities, and now, forests must contend with Climate Change, which means bigger, more frequent fires, with less and less room for wildlife. What does this mean for the wolf, coyote, mountain lion and millions of other native species?
Why do some individuals and groups continue to excuse this environmental catastrophe perpetrated by The Livestock Industry? Let us stop making any more excuses for them. If we remove this industry from public lands, which belong to native wildlife, the animals will be safer, and the ranchers will be forced to graze on whatever private lands they have. This may force them to be more responsible–or they will be forced to get out of the business. Frankly, I have no sympathy for this terrible, environmentally-destructive enterprise. I support the native wild animals.
http://www.foranimals.org
These problems would be solved if humans weaned themselves off their meat addiction.
That’s the key, its an addiction, but the addicted people can’t see it.