Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? By Angie Nash
Mar. 15 2011, 7:45 PM

I’m not Little Red Riding Hood and I haven’t seen Three Little Pigs in quite some time. The Canadian Grey Wolf has come to NE Oregon.

We have a pack of 16 wolves hanging out with our cattle for 9 months out of the year. This is no fairy tale. I heard about Montana, Wyoming and Idaho and just couldn’t believe it was real. We lost 20 calves in 09, which for us equals $24,000. We were the only ones in our area to lose cattle that year. We talked about it and since we lease 130,000 acres of USFS ground we are pretty remote. No one wanted to believe it until the wolves came to town.

We have since learned that the wolves take their pups to what is called a rendezvous site where they teach the pups to hunt. This happened to be a place where we had 200 pair (cow + calf). We didn’t find out about this until last summer when a wolf specialist came to the county and had a talk with us on wolf behavior. My husband often rides 15 miles a day and was woofed at by these wolves. His border collies that are usually quite a distance in front of him were right under his horse, they knew. The state agency in charge of the wolves knew exactly what was going on and failed to contact us.

We have only found one dead calf. All that was left was a head and ribcage and the carcass was still warm. We found this calf because an eagle had landed on it. The total loss in our county to date is at least 75. The stress and worry over our animals cannot be compensated.

We hear a lot about the “Endangered Species Act” and these wolves are protected like the eagles. They are not endangered and are not the wolf species that once lived here. We live in the land of the Nez Perce and their history talks a lot about a Red Wolf, which is 60-80 pounds, not 100-140 pounds. The Canadian Grey Wolf is known as an Apex Predator, a predator with no predators of their own, thus residing at the top of the food chain. The paw print of a Canadian Grey Wolf is as large as a man’s hand.

A month ago, seven of these wolves came to a ranch about five miles from town. They took down two mama cows and ate their calves out of them-one had twins. The wolf does not kill before it starts eating. The crime scene was very gruesome. Nothing was done about this. So strange. The wolf is a wild dog, not a god.

A yearling female wolf was killed by one of the state agencies two weeks ago due to over drugging her and extreme stress. No one lost his or her job, no federal charges were made, just oops, we don’t know what happened.

Wolf fence is being installed now around calving pastures. This should hold them until they figure out how to jump. The time and money that is being put into these animals is criminal in itself.

All this being said the wolf is an amazing creature. The wolf is extremely intelligent, born to hunt, eat, and repeat. We feel angry and sad that we are put in the position of animosity against them. We don’t hate the wolf but know that it is being used as a tool to remove cattle from public land. No one in this scenario is happy, not the environmentalists, not the ranchers, not the tourists that love our beautiful mountain valley. It’s a serious situation that could definitely end many ranches in our community.

The Montana Governor, Brian Schweitzer, has written the U.S. Department of the Interior, Ken Salazar, and told him that he is in fact taking his state back. I do not know this man but I definitely want to shake his hand.

This is a strange and tragic situation for Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and now NE Oregon. Why is one animal’s life more important than another? I need to say it again, “The wolf is a wild dog, not a god." http://workingranchtv.com/blog/324