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As wolf numbers rise, so does conflict
Farmers say livestock comes under attackMarch 20, 2003
BY ERIC SHARP
ESCANABA -- Jeffrey DeBacker, who raises dairy cattle in Marquette County, has seen evidence that wolves are no longer an endangered species in Michigan. They have killed eight cows on his farm. Eric Wallis has lost 100 sheep to wolves in three years on his farm near Rudyard in the eastern Upper Peninsula. Until now, he said, the state Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wouldn't do anything to stop the predation or pay him for his losses. Wolves, once rare in Michigan, are flourishing in the Upper Peninsula. The UP population has doubled to about 300 in the past five years, said Pat Lederle, the DNR's endangered species coordinator. A few wolves have been reported in the Lower Peninsula, but Lederle said the breeding population is still in the UP, although he expects that wolf packs eventually will establish themselves below the Mackinac Bridge. Some residents have fought back at the growing wolf numbers. Six wolves were found killed illegally in the UP from July through November, and the DNR is offering rewards of $3,000 each for information about the cases. Wolves have become a big enough problem that one scientist plans to capture some and fit them with collars, which would give the animals an electric shock if they got close to a farm. But the key to settling wolf-human conflicts is a decision to downgrade the protection afforded wolves, allowing state wildlife agencies to kill problem animals that prey on livestock. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday that the great majority of the wolves in the lower 48 states would be taken off the endangered species list and reclassified as threatened. The change will take effect as soon as the new rules can be published next week in the Federal Register. The DNR has preferred to use non-lethal methods to stop wolves from killing farm animals, but "when the wolf is reclassified to threatened, the state can kill wolves, and it probably will kill some," Lederle said. Maintaining a wolf population requires "a public that is sympathetic to wolves, and if public support erodes, the population will decline," he said. "No one in the DNR wants to kill wolves, but if we remove a few problem individuals, it will benefit the greater wolf population in the long run." Some wolf-protection groups argue that farmers encourage wolf predation by leaving cattle in distant pastures. Moving the cattle closer to the farmhouse and barns would discourage wolf attacks, they say. Dr. Michael Brunner, a state Department of Agriculture veterinarian in Escanaba, said such arguments ignore economic realities. "Years ago, we used to think that every cow had to be kept under cover all winter," Brunner said. "But now we realize that if a cow gets good nutrition, it can take a lot colder weather than we thought." Cattle now are left out in unsupervised pastures for longer periods, which reduces the farmers' operating costs. The state Agriculture Department compensates farmers if the DNR confirms that the culprits were wolves. In 2001 and 2002, a total of $18,000 went to 10 farmers who lost sheep, cattle and one horse. This year, the department has paid $1,700 to six farmers who lost cattle, turkeys and chickens. But DeBacker said: "I get turned down every time I ask for compensation, even though the wolf tracks are there. I've even shown them wolf scat with cattle hair in it. "Raymond Spring, my hired man, went out one day and found a wolf standing on the back of a cow that was down, eating its uterus. The cow had just calved, and it was weak. It was still alive as the wolf was eating it, and we had to shoot the cow. The wolves got the calf, too. But I never got a nickel from the DNR." Wallis tells a similar story. "I've had the DNR out to look at the problem, but I can't get any compensation for my losses," he said. "They say there's not positive proof that it was wolves, like tracks or wolf scat. They won't let us kill the wolves, and if a wolf grabs a lamb and jumps the fence with it, I don't think it's going to come back and poop in my field for me." Wallis and DeBacker say city dwellers don't understand that few farmers want to kill wolves. "We like wildlife on our farms," DeBacker said. "We can live with wolves. Only a few wolves ever attack livestock, but when one goes bad, it teaches its young to prey on livestock, too, and we should be able to stop them from killing our animals, "It's like having a mouse in your house. Just because you want to get rid of that mouse doesn't mean you want to kill every mouse on your property." Wallis said: "I notice most of the people who don't want to see wolves killed live in places where they don't have any wolves. I think you'd hear them sing a different tune if you had wolves going into backyards in Bloomfield Hills and killing dogs." Dr. Thomas Gehring, a wildlife biologist and habitat ecologist at Central Michigan University, will try some experiments this summer that might reduce wolf predation. Gehring is also working with wolves in Minnesota, which has more than 2,500, and Wisconsin, which has about the same number as Michigan. Those are the only wolves in this country outside the West and Alaska. Michigan's 300 wolves outnumber those of the Yellowstone area in Wyoming and Montana. One idea is to trap some wolves and fit them with a shock collar "like the one that dog owners use with invisible fences," Gehring said. "If the dog gets too close to the property line, it gets a shock that teaches it to stay in the yard. We think we can do the same thing and teach wolves to stay away from an area like a pasture." Gehring also plans to test a technique called fladry, in which flags are strung on a series of ropes stretched through the woods, much like the fluttering flags around car lots. The wolves apparently are afraid of the flags and won't cross the ropes. Hunters in Russia and Poland have used fladry for years to guide wolves into pens where they can be killed. Gehring thinks the same techniques might be used to keep wolves from crossing a line of flags into pastures where domestic animals are kept. The first test will come this summer on Wallis' sheep farm. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ |