{"id":1408,"date":"2009-06-14T13:19:38","date_gmt":"2009-06-14T17:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dailycoyote.net\/index.php\/?p=1408"},"modified":"2012-10-02T12:18:37","modified_gmt":"2012-10-02T16:18:37","slug":"a-little-ok-a-lot-more-about-wolves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/?p=1408","title":{"rendered":"A Little (OK, A Lot) More About Wolves"},"content":{"rendered":"

After posting a Twitter<\/strong><\/a> a few days ago regarding wolf kills on the mountain (killing by wolves, not of wolves), I received a number of twitters and emails in response which covered a spectrum of emotion – from shock to sadness to denial, and many of you requested a more in-depth explanation of the event.<\/p>\n

The wolf debate is an intense one, and in this post I am simply stating facts as I have learned them since living here.\u00a0 I find this information important enough to share, important enough to risk receiving hate mail over, as much of it does counter what I had believed\/been taught before I moved here and began living in the midst of it all.<\/p>\n

The sharing of information from all sides and perspectives is essential for intelligent resolve, and there are many forums and sites open to this complex issue.\u00a0 Though I intrinsically want to open comments on this post, I do not trust a certain percentage of my readers to be civil, to me as well as to other commenters, and I’m not going to babysit.<\/p>\n

The rest of this post is after the jump, so that those who do not want to be confronted with the details have the choice.\u00a0 There are two photographs at the end of the post that some may find disturbing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Last week I Twittered that two wolves slaughtered forty ewes and lambs on the mountain (41 to be exact).\u00a0 Eight of the ewes were torn apart and still breathing when they were found the next morning.\u00a0 The first question I can address here is “how do you know they were wolves, could it have been a pack of wild dogs?”<\/p>\n

Just as good stockbrokers can read the market, and good photographers can read light, those who specialize in predation can read the signs left behind – tracks in the dirt and mud, the manner and method of the killing, the placement and size of puncture wounds.\u00a0 A wolf track is the length of a dollar bill.\u00a0 For comparison, Charlie’s track is the height of a bill – the short side.\u00a0 There is no confusing the two.\u00a0 The photo at the bottom of this post shows the holes made by a wolf’s canine teeth.<\/p>\n

So yes – they were, without question, wolves.\u00a0 It was determined that it was two wolves, possibly three, through a number of means.\u00a0 Several ewes were grabbed simultaneously at the neck and the haunch and pulled in opposite directions, proving there were at least two wolves.\u00a0 A study of the tracks determined it was two or three wolves, versus a pack of several.\u00a0 Also, wolf activity in the Bighorns is monitored closely.\u00a0 The Game & Fish has several trail cams on the mountain and has footage of two wolves.\u00a0 Though this is not gospel, it is highly unlikely from all the information collected in various ways that there are more than three wolves in the area right now.<\/p>\n

Wolves that appear in the Bighorns are transient wolves that have left Yellowstone, seeking new territory.\u00a0 Wolves are not managed (killed, culled, you choose the verb) in Yellowstone, and since they have no predators, their population exceeds what Yellowstone can hold.\u00a0 And so every year, some wolves leave to find new territory around Cody, the Bighorns, or into Montana and Idaho.\u00a0 The political mess at the moment is exacerbated by the fact that wolves are classified as trophy game animals in Montana and Idaho, but are on the endangered species list in Wyoming.\u00a0 Regardless of the side of the debate you are on, that logic is baffling.<\/p>\n

Back to the sheep.\u00a0 Forty-one ewes and lambs is far more than two wolves could eat – this is the point that confused and upset so many of you.\u00a0 As you can see in the photo below, most of the dead sheep were not fed upon at all once they were killed.\u00a0 Wolves kill a bit differently than coyotes or lions.\u00a0 A wolf will hit a herd of prey animals and attack as many animals as it can, hedging its bets, so to speak.\u00a0 After the herd disperses, it goes back and sees what is dead and feeds on that animal.\u00a0 With wild herds such as antelope and elk, a wolf may only manage to sink its teeth into one or two small or weak animals, as the flight-drive of these wild prey is so attuned.\u00a0 Sheep, being so domesticated, become flustered and simply don’t have the instinct to flee.\u00a0 And so the wolf hits many.\u00a0 And when there is more than one wolf, this does turn into a frenzy – they feed off the energy and off eachother and it goes from simply “getting groceries” to a bonafide killing spree.\u00a0 This behaviour is unusual in lions, coyotes, fox, etc, but it is familiar in domestic dogs.\u00a0 And humans.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, the rancher who lost his sheep doesn’t hate wolves; he has shown much grace in the midst of his heartbreak, and says the wolves were just being wolves.\u00a0 And he is<\/em> heartbroken.\u00a0 This is a man in his late 60’s\/early 70’s, whose family has been raising sheep for generations, who spent 24-hours a day with his sheep this Spring, helping them deliver their lambs, doctoring the sick, sleeping with them, caring for them.\u00a0 He is a steward of the land, never grazing his private land too hard so that it can also maintain populations of deer, elk, antelope, and all the other creatures that still call this place home.\u00a0 He loves fox, even though they can kill lambs.\u00a0 He is tolerant of coyotes, unless they are actively killing sheep.\u00a0 He is a conservationist in the truest sense of the word.<\/p>\n

So, the debate continues.\u00a0 Who is to say which deaths are more important – the deaths of these forty-one sheep, or the deaths of certain wolves in a monitered management program, perhaps even in Yellowstone.\u00a0 It’s a difficult position we as humans are put in, having to make these kinds of decisions.\u00a0 But we are required to make them, simply because we have taken over so much of the land in this country, paved it, built super-stores upon it.\u00a0 It is a concept that everyone should be actively thinking about, regardless of whether you live in one of the few remaining rural areas or the cities or the suburbs.\u00a0 Look at how coyotes are now commonplace in suburbia or the streets of LA.\u00a0 Wolves might be on their way, and after seeing what they do to sheep on the mountain, I shudder at what they could do on a playground.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is only half of the dead.\u00a0 They were gathered and buried.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is an example of a wolf bite.\u00a0 Puncture holes are circled by me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After posting a Twitter a few days ago regarding wolf kills on the mountain (killing by wolves, not of wolves), I received a number of twitters and emails in response which covered a spectrum of emotion – from shock to sadness to denial, and many of you requested a more in-depth explanation of the event. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1408"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5843,"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions\/5843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}