Wild horses drag photographer into rangelands

Exhibition featuring Challis herd will open in Hailey [Idaho]. Idaho Mountain Express.

There is a wild horse herd in Idaho. It’s near Challis. You can often see them in the East Fork of the Salmon on the Greenfire Preserve and the BLM land to the east.

I have a feeling that wild horses are becoming more popular. I long regarded them as feral stock, but they are beautiful and very capable of taking care of themselves.

Last winter a wolf tested them on the Greenfire. He barely escaped the wrath of the lead stallion.

The only thing that frightens them are the BLM’s helicopters.

There are also wild horse herds in Montana, Wyoming, and Nevada. Maybe more in other states. Folks who know please post. This is not something I know a lot about.

Wild horses from the Challis herd on the Greenfire Preserve. East Fork of the Salmon River. June 2006.

Famous Idaho wolf who went Oregon found long dead

Back 1998 a young female wolf swam the Snake River and crossed into Oregon from Idaho eventually settling in the Blue Mountains in what would be a fruitless search for a mate. However, wolf B45F wore a radio collar broadcasting her location, and after much controversy, she was captured and returned to central Idaho.

Back in Idaho, she always hung out about 2030 miles north of McCall in Western Idaho in the Secesh River, Squaw Meadows, Clochman Saddle, Burgdorf, Carey Dome Country. She was seen from time-to-time in the company of uncollared wolves, but it is not known if she was basically a loner, a pack member, or even the alpha of one of the many packs that have come and gone, and keep coming in the general area — perhaps the Carey Dome Pack or the Partridge Creek Pack?

Her skeleton was found by a Wildlife Services agent in Squaw Meadows Oct. 16. Grass was growing through it, but her radio collar’s numbers could be deciphered.

Here are some past stories

Idaho Wolf shows up in northeast Oregon. Feb 1999 (with many updates)

Blue Mountain Wolf Captured and Returned to Idaho. Late March 1999

There is at least one wolf currently wandering in NE Oregon, probably more, but recovery has been slow and B45 was an early pioneer.

I took the photo above of Squaw Meadows on June 30 this year. Her skeleton was out there somewhere. Instead I spent my time wandering around Clochman Saddle.

Defenders announces success in non-lethal wolf management

NEW SUCCESSES IN NONLETHAL WOLF CONTROL
LEAD TO ZERO WOLF-RELATED LIVESTOCK LOSSES FOR LOCAL RANCHERS

Collaborative Conflict Management Unites an Alliance of Ranchers,
Wildlife Conservationists and Natural Resource Managers

Boise, ID — Local ranches partnering with Defenders of Wildlife and wildlife agencies to expand their use of non-lethal wolf control measures experienced no wolf-related livestock losses this grazing season. Lava Lake Land and Livestock, which grazes sheep on the Sawtooth and Salmon-Challis National Forests, made use of a new type of electrified fladry called “turbofladry” to create highly portable night corrals, while The Lazy EL Ranch in the Absaroka-Beartooth foothills in southern Montana began a successful range rider program to protect grazing cattle herds. Both ranches experienced zero known livestock predations to wolves and credit this success to a collaborative and non-lethal conflict management approach.

Mike Stevens, who runs Lava Lake Land and Livestock, heralded the summer’s proactive control efforts, including the turbofladry project, as a highly successful example of creative, non-lethal conflict management. “Practical, inexpensive and non-lethal methods help reduce losses and conflicts while promoting better cooperation between ranchers, state and federal land managers and wildlife conservationists.”

Defenders of Wildlife’s program, The Bailey Wildlife Foundation Proactive Carnivore Conservation Fund, helps local ranchers and wildlife managers fund non-lethal methods to protect livestock through both traditional means, like range riders and livestock guarding dogs, and new technology including electric barriers and alarms triggered by radio telemetry. Defenders contributed more than $40,000 this season to support non-lethal projects with expert assistance from state and federal wildlife managers who also helped identify and implement proactive methods for these collaborative projects. Defenders also administers The Bailey Wildlife Wolf Compensation Trust which compensates ranchers for verified losses to wolves.

“Ranchers who are committed to being good stewards of the land and its wildlife are the most important partners we have in wolf conservation,” said Suzanne Stone, Northern Rockies Representative for Defenders of Wildlife. “While no methods are 100 percent effective 100 percent of the time, reducing conflicts through non-lethal methods allows both wolves and livestock to better co-exist in many areas. We are proud to work with our partner ranchers and look forward to working with others as the program expands.”

Click on the images below to view larger versions:

Sheep depredation losses on large public land grazing operations are the main cause of wolf deaths in the northern Rockies — and one of the hardest conflicts to prevent.

This summer, Defenders partnered on an experimental non-lethal project with Lava Lake Land and Livestock, whose sheep grazing operations range over large federal allotments in central Idaho’s Sawtooth and Salmon-Challis National Forests. With more than 6,000 sheep, Lava Lake runs one of the largest sheep outfits in the region on over 800,000 acres of private and public land, and has received recent U.S. Forest Service awards for their environmental stewardship practices. Last summer wolves killed 25 sheep on one of their grazing allotments. This summer, with the help of USDA Wildlife Services in Idaho and Defenders, Lava Lake utilized the newly designed turbofladry (solar powered electric flagging barrier) and created highly portable night corrals to protect a sheep band. Lava Lake used turbofladry in conjunction with guard dogs, night watches by herders and use of shotguns and cracker shells to deter wolves from approaching the sheep band.

While these bands consisted of over 1,200 sheep and were in close proximity to wolves during late summer, they did not experience a single wolf depredation despite being within a quarter mile of the location where wolves had killed sheep and a guard dog in 2005.

Idaho Fish and Game biologists confirmed the presence of wolves within one to two miles of the sheep band. Stevens also notes that regular communication amongst Wildlife Services, Idaho Department of Fish and Game and Lava Lake was a crucial element in reducing livestock losses.

Defenders co-sponsored several range rider projects on ranches including The Lazy EL, a 12,000 acre ranch located in the foothills of the Absaroka-Beartooth wilderness, 35 miles northwest of Yellowstone National Park.

In 2003, wolves began establishing pack territories north of Yellowstone near Red Lodge and some began killing livestock. As a result of the conflicts, two entire packs of wolves were killed. The ranch family at the Lazy EL, which has owned their ranch for more than 100 years, is actively using non-lethal methods to promote co-existence with wolves. Their range riders are caring for cow and calf pairs from August to late October. The ranch’s grasslands are excellent habitat for elk, deer and moose and consequently, wolves are attracted to the area.

“Ranchers are not the enemies of wildlife supporters,” said Jael Kampfe, ranch manager of The Lazy EL. “We are simply seeking to protect our family’s traditions and western heritage. By working with Defenders, we are building more common ground to collaboratively resolve conflicts. We share a love for this land and its wild beauty. We just need better ways to co-exist.”

Defenders seeks to work with ranchers to expand the use of these and other non-lethal control methods. Since its inception, The Bailey Wildlife Foundation Proactive Carnivore Conservation Fund has contributed more than $275,000 to local ranchers and communities to help them use non-lethal measures to protect livestock from wolves before conflicts happen. The Bailey Wildlife Foundation Wolf Compensation Trust has paid more than $715,000 to local ranchers to compensate them for verified livestock losses.

Diseases affecting Yellowstone wildlife. Park, universities conduct research projects

See article in the Billings Gazette by Mike Stark.

Yellowstone Park has signed up Montana State University and the University of California at Davis to study and monitor wildlife diseases that beset the Park or threaten to. It is called the Yellowstone Wildlife Health Program.

Wildlife diseases have long been an interest to me as a political scientist.

Just like human diseases always have their politics (think Parkinson’s and stem cell research) so to, do wildlife diseases which are often passed to wildlife by domesticated animals, as well as passed the other way. Influenza, especially a pandemic, is generated in a genetic mixing bowl of humans, birds, and pigs, quite often in Southeast Asia, although the evidence is the “Spanish Flu” of 1918 originated in the United States and was aggravated by the domestic politics of World War I (“don’t talk about it or it will hurt the war effort”). The 1918 flu ended up killing more people, including ten times more Americans, than World War I.

There’s a blog devoted to wildlife disease. Wildlife Disease Information Node