Wolf Nation

by Brenda Peterson

  Scientists wonder whether perhaps the wolves are establishing their territory in the Golden State because of the glaciers that cover their namesake, Mount Shasta. California, like much of the West, has faced severe drought, and that reduces prey populations like mule deer and elk. But Mount Shasta enjoys generous snowmelt in the spring and early summer, which nourishes the high mountain forests and wild animals. It doesn’t seem a coincidence that the wild wolves restoring themselves in the western states have all settled near glaciers with abundant prey—and few people.

  Another editorial, “Celebrate the Return of Wolves to California,” pointed out that the Shasta pack had chosen “friendly territory” on the border of northern California and Oregon to start their family. It concludes with the telling statistic: “Wild wolves generally fear people and rarely pose a threat to human safety. Still, the U.S. has had two fatalities since 2000. Then again, cows kill 20 people a year.” These are the kind of statistics that need to be widely known as wild wolves recover on their own and with our help. As we study the lives of real wolves returning to their native habitat, everything changes. The story is forever revised.

  WHEN WE HAVE INVESTED our interest in individual wild animals—say, Cecil the Lion or one of Jane Goodall’s well-known chimps—what happens when they are targeted and the whole world mourns their loss? Will state wildlife commissions listen? Will they understand that they are no longer invisible agencies operating, like Wildlife Services, in the shadows? Will they realize the whole world is watching?

  Stories of individual animals must now be told. Hearing the story of one child surviving a tsunami or a refugee finding a homeland is what touches us the most. Not stats and population densities, but characters in stories that very much mirror our own daily struggles to survive. An individual, well-loved, even heroic wolf like OR7 with whom we’ve so deeply identified can never be a statistic again. If we track an animal hero’s journey, the death or loss of that animal is not just news—it is a tragedy.

  OR7’s epic journey drives deep into our American character, like a taproot. What is it about a traveler’s tale, an odyssey, that so galvanizes us? Is it because our human history is so migratory, our very DNA a trail of tribulations and triumphs? The immigrant and nomadic lineage of our nation’s brief history and the settling of the West is mirrored in OR7’s westward migration. The difference is, of course, that OR7 was repopulating territory that is his wolf nation’s birthright. Perhaps there were scent traces or dens that had somehow lasted almost a century, even when wolves were just memories. Perhaps the memory was in OR7’s DNA, like some biological impulse to return home. If salmon can remember and return to the same creeks and streams of their birth, even after being lost at sea all their lives, and if other migrating animals can retrace their routes using electromagnetic fields in the earth, then why not wolves reclaiming the West that was once all theirs?

  In a new century with wolf tales like OR7’s, the Old-West story of contented cows grazing on public lands, of cowboys, hunters, and ranchers, is no longer the main event. When a wolf becomes a folk hero, when his journey goes viral, when audiences cheer him on to find a mate and raise pups—that is every bit as compelling a drama as the story cattlemen have long told of round-ups, rustlers, and gunslingers.

  When we recognize individual wolves and their wolf nation, we change our own history. Change is painful, and some ranchers and hunters are reverting to violence. Some wildlife commissions are digging deep into past prejudices. But they do so at great cost: the storyline of a rancher killing the well-known and loved wolves who are just beginning to return is bad press. Now certain enlightened ranchers are adapting to a changing story: living with wolves. They join wildlife advocates, becoming heroes of wolf recovery and sustainability.

  The Nez Perce tribe, who, like the wolves, have lived in Oregon for millennia, have taken in wild wolves from the original Sawtooth pack on their sovereign native lands. They now offer sanctuary to what they call the Owyhee pack. Their twenty-year-old wolf sanctuary, the Wolf Education and Research Center (WERC), has its tribal offices in Winchester, Idaho, and Portland, Oregon. Their newsletter, The Sawtooth Legacy, is required reading in many Oregon schools, and every summer they host an educational two-day Wolf Camp. In their weekly Radio Wild educational podcast series, they have posted an interview with a Nez Perce elder who reminds us: “The wolves have always been here.”

  14. SHEEP HIGHWAY: COEXISTING WITH WOLVES

  When a rancher grazed his sheep right on top of an area where wild wolves were denning in 2007—we expected a train wreck,” says Suzanne Stone, who works with Defenders of Wildlife and is cofounder of the Wood River Wolf Project.

  The Wood River Valley in Idaho’s south-central Sawtooth Mountains is summer grazing ground for up to twenty-five thousand sheep. Its “Sheep Super Highway,” along which herders move their stock, is legendary. In the summer of 2007 there was a new wolf pack in Blaine County, and the sheep grazing season began just as the wolf pack’s pups were growing up and traveling. After the wolves took down several lambs, the pack was slated for removal.

  “Blaine County is like our own little Yellowstone Serengeti,” Stone explained. “No one wanted to see this sheep rancher lose his livelihood, but no one wanted to lose wolves either. So a lot of people asked state agencies and Defenders of Wildlife to help provide nonlethal defense for sheep.”

  Idaho, however, has one of the most virulent antiwolf state policies. Its wildlife commission assumed the proposed nonlethal Wood River Wolf Project would fail and the state could simply continue what Idaho has been doing all along—kill wolves.

  “This valley is an area where Ed Bangs, head of USFW Northern Rockies’ Wolf Program, said wolves would never survive here,” Stone noted, “because we have one of the highest concentration of livestock, especially sheep, on public lands anywhere in America.” She added that even before wolves returned to Idaho there was livestock predation from coyotes and dogs; together they accounted for 30 percent of sheep losses each year. “But coyote and dog losses do not make the paper or make a big political stir,” Stone said. “This has less to do with wolves and more about human fear of what could happen,” she explained. After wolves reclaimed the landscape they accounted for only 1 percent of lost livestock. Other livestock losses are from such elements as weather, birthing problems, and disease.

  Though few believed that sheep could be safely protected from wolves who had already fed on livestock, wolves were given a second chance. Defenders of Wildlife, wildlife agencies, and sheep ranchers worked together to find common ground and coexistence.

  “We’re in year nine now of our project,” Stone told me, “and we have ten to twenty-five thousand sheep grazing here from the end of May through mid-October. And in all that time since 2007 we’ve only lost thirty sheep to wolves—total.”

  That is 90 percent lower than the loss of sheep to wolves in the adjacent grazing land outside of the project’s area. And no wolves have had to be killed—at great expense to taxpayers—by wildlife control agents. The Wood River Wolf Project has grown from 150 to 1,000 square miles and is working with all five sheep producers in the grazing corridor known locally as the “Sheep Super Highway,” along which move herds, called “bands,” of fifteen hundred to two thousand sheep.

  “Our project includes some great mentors and people who took risks to try new approaches to age-old conflicts,” said Stone, who has traveled all over the world teaching methods of protection pioneered in the project.

  The focus is on prevention. Sheep ranchers remove carcasses and bone piles that naturally attract wolves. Scavenging on what is already dead is a lot less work for wolves than hunting. Ranchers who participate are taught to “think like wolves” and not offer them “an easy meal.” When farmers throw carcasses into open-pits without any electric fencing or regular monitoring, it naturally attracts wolves. Once those wolves have fed on carcasses, it is a simple next step to hunt live sheep or cows. Burning carcasses in a pi
t or hauling them away to a rendering facility is advised, whenever possible, instead of leaving them to decay in open fields.

  Ranchers apply technology such as telemetry to monitor the wolf family’s location and game camera traps that survey the movement of predators, including moose, bears, and cougars as well as wolves. Radio-active alarms and the simple use of “fladry,” those nylon fence tags that flap erratically, arouse a wolf’s natural wariness of anything unusual in their territory. “Turbofladry” is stringing those red flags along electrified fences that deliver a powerful shock if the wolf tries to trespass into sheep bedgrounds at night. Wolves also keep their distance from noisemakers like starter pistols (using .22 blank bullets), ear-splitting air horns, and—believe it or not—boom boxes. Many wolves are unfamiliar with human music, and it can be jarring, even frightening. Think the Clash or Metallica accosting the sensitive ears of a wolf who can hear sound from six to nine miles away.

  Heavy-duty spotlights and Foxlights that project 360 degrees and shine light one kilometer are also quite effective. These computerized, varying spotlights give the illusion that someone is moving around and actually patrolling. These tools are part of the “Band Kits” that the project puts together for shepherds and field volunteers.

  Another preventative step is for ranchers, herders, and field techs to build night corrals within a small pasture, protected at night with fladry flags. This is less expensive than fencing or flagging or lighting a very large area. Livestock actually grow accustomed to returning to their corrals at night and enter corrals on their own. Cattle are so used to their routine that one rancher moved his entire herd in less than thirty minutes “using only a whistle, two dogs, and a load of fresh feed.”

  Some of the fiercest protectors of sheep and other livestock are the domesticated canines whose ancestors once included wolves. Livestock guardian dogs (LGDs) are breeds like Great Pyrenees, Anatolian shepherds, Akbash, and Maremma, who have been engaged in protecting livestock from predators for centuries. In the United States the Great Pyrenees are the most well-known and popular dogs used to guard livestock, whereas border collies are bred to herd the animals. Visit the Facebook page of the Wood River Wolf Project, and there are as many snapshots of Great Pyrenees puppies and guardians as there are sheep. In one photo an adult Great Pyrenees, whose white coat is almost as thick as that of the band of sheep she protects, faces the camera as if to forbid any intruder. In another photo a puppy faces off with the camera, barking aggressively and with a serious expression and deeply furrowed brow, as if to say, “These are my sheep. Git!”

  These puppies are not raised to bond with humans as our daily companions. Their devotion is reserved for the sheep. At five to six weeks old the barn or outdoor pen is home to these Pyrenees puppies, and the sheep are their extended family. A mother guardian dog trains her pups to bark if a predator is nearby and to patrol the herd. The puppy “needs to be within sight and sound” of his livestock companions, and “pups from working parents usually have excellent early socialization” to the sheep or goats or poultry they protect.

  Puppies are trained both by their mother and older guardian dog mentors. But the rancher, although not overly friendly, will hand-feed the puppies. Ranchers move the feed bucket around the perimeter, stopping to let the pups gobble kibbles, before moving on along the fence. This teaches the puppies to patrol the area and be rewarded for their effort. Another training strategy is to put the pup on a long leash while moving around a sheep herd. If the pup goes after a sheep, a quick tug on the lead prevents any damage. Most guardian dogs are not ready to get down to real work until they are two years old.

  Just because a guardian dog is raised with sheep doesn’t mean there is no connection with people—guardian dogs have always worked with shepherds. However, owners are advised to “minimize the handling and stroking of pups. Do not treat them like pets.” They should respond when called and allow handling, “but should not seek attention from people.”

  LGDs also need protection from predators. Adults have nails embedded in their collars in case they are attacked. They are trained to stay with the herd and not give chase to wolves or other predators. Leaving the safety of the sheep herds, called “bands,” can mean injury or death for a guardian dog. Most ranchers work with three or more dogs to defend their sheep. Wolves seem to interpret multiple dogs as another pack and avoid any encounter. But when ranchers employ five or more guardian dogs they are often “more interested in socializing with each other than guarding livestock.” Between April and June, when wolves give birth and must protect their dens, guardian dogs are kept away from wolf ranges to avoid wolf-dog conflicts.

  Most effective of all in protecting sheep from wolves is a human presence. This includes the range riders who herd livestock and veteran sheepherders from Peru. Wolves are very suspicious of humans and rarely come anywhere near when a range rider is at work. Because wolves hunt mostly at night, the Wood River Wolf Project has set up “sheep camps,” often assisted by volunteers. When the sheep are in their bedding grounds, people take night shifts along with their guardian dogs. If they get word from the radio telemetry that wolves are nearby, herders can set up temporary turbofladry and contact project team members if they need assistance. It’s very hard and vigilant work to stay up all night using guard dogs and predator deterrents.

  In 2012 there was much concern as herders moved their sheep to a watering hole, as they were overnighting the band dangerously near the Pioneer pack’s territory. Everyone was keenly aware that right over the border in northeastern Washington State wildlife officials had just killed off all but two members of the Wedge pack for preying upon cattle in Ferry County. Calling the lethal removal a “last resort” and a “sad lesson,” a WDFW spokesperson said future wolf culls would be “extremely rare” and that the department “never wants to do this again… the social acceptance is just not there.” The cost for taxpayers of culling the Wedge pack was $77,000. Conservation Northwest pleaded for more expansive use of nonlethal efforts.

  Right across the state line in Idaho the Wood River Wolf Project was just such a strategy. When Peruvian herder Alvarado Baldeon was hired to protect rancher John Peavey’s sheep that summer, there had already been a disastrous wolf conflict in early spring—thirty-seven sheep killed by wolves. Of the sheep killed, many were pregnant ewes. In response, federal wildlife officials killed two wolves from the pack believed responsible for the predation. Peavey was not yet participating in the Wood River Wolf Project. Stone criticized Peavey letting pregnant ewes roam public land without range riders.

  “It’s like ringing a dinner bell, setting the table, and then shooting the guests when they show up,” she said.

  Rancher Peavey protested that prowolf advocates didn’t realize “the complexities of animal husbandry” or how “pregnant and newly delivered ewes get stressed out when they’re bunched together in the tight groups that Defenders of Wildlife advocates for deterring predators.” He explained that such bunching creates more stillborn lambs and sometimes nursing lambs can’t find their mothers. He also pointed out that sheep ranchers have to deal with predators other than wolves.

  When Defenders of Wildlife asked Peavey whether they could sponsor night vigils or sheep camps to help protect his bands, he agreed. Such programs are not cheap. Defenders spend $50,000 to $60,000 each year to fund the Wood River Wolf Project’s many nonlethal deterrents. “The goal is to make livestock riskier for wolves to pursue than their natural prey,” said Stone.

  So when Baldeon spread out his bedroll inside his “campo,” or sheep wagon, and settled in for a long, sleepless night with his guardian dogs, the stakes were high for everyone. The summer turned out to be tranquillo for Baldeon, even though every night when he howled out into the darkness he was answered by the nearby Pioneer pack. In September, as the sheep were moved deeper into the Pioneer pack’s territory, two sheep from Baldeon’s flock and seven from another band were killed. Idaho Fish and Game set out wolf traps fo
r the Pioneer pack. The cycle of kill-and-be-killed seemed inevitable.

  Additional field volunteers were called in to help Baldeon keep watch—five people now spending the night in shifts with the sheep. A Defenders of Wildlife field manager found wolf scat scattered among the sheep one morning, though no sheep were lost the previous night. No wolves triggered the government’s death traps. By October Baldeon and the field technicians marched their fifteen hundred sheep through the Trailing of the Sheep festival. “The sheep were fat and healthy, wearing a season’s worth of wool.”

  THE WOOD RIVER WOLF PROJECT depends upon ranchers’ willingness to work closely with USFW, Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the US Forest Service, and conservation groups like Defenders of Wildlife and the Nature Conservancy. There is also support from the national and local Audubon Society, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and LightHawk to sponsor wolf-livestock coexistence workshops for people of all ages. In 2015 the Lava Lake Institute for Science and Conservation joined the Wood River Wolf Project, which also conducts workshops for volunteers.

  Field and staff volunteers for the Wood River Wolf Project do more than sitting vigil with sheep. They must be experienced in backcountry hiking and wilderness first aid as well as have some skills in Spanish. The other requirements for field volunteers read like those for a rigorous summer camp: navigating in backcountry without cell service; hiking late at night in the dark; backpacking up to eight miles in rough or mountainous terrain; camping in snow, sleet, and wind; enduring exposure to predators like bears and mountain lions; and, most important of all, being comfortable surrounded by two thousand ewes and lambs, guard dogs, and horses.