Northern rocky mountain wolf recovery program 2011 interagency annual report

Fish and Wildlife Service USFWS confirmed a total of cattle both adults and calves and sheep adults and lambs killed by wolves in This leaves the accuracy of the NASS data in question, and the reports likely overestimate the number of livestock killed by wolves. One way to estimate impact of wolves on the livestock industry is to calculate the proportion of livestock killed by wolves out of the total number of livestock in counties with wolves. However, this calculation ignores livestock that are not vulnerable to predation e.

Nonetheless, the available data suggest that mortality caused by wolves is a small economic cost to the livestock industry as a whole. However, in addition to mortalities, producers can also suffer indirect losses such as stress, sickness, and reduced weight gain and pregnancy rates when wolves scare, chase, or attack livestock.

Costs could be considerably higher when including unseen deaths, indirect losses, and expenses for producers to deter wolves or to seek compensation see Wolf Economics Information Sheet. Both direct and indirect losses could significantly affect the livelihood of individual ranchers operating on thin profit margins in volatile markets.

Understanding why some producers are more vulnerable to wolf predation and others are not is an active area of research. On rare occasions predators kill many animals in excess of their food needs and only eat a portion of what is killed. This is sometimes called surplus killing, excess killing, or partial prey consumption. Bears do this when there are so many fish that are easy to catch they can consume only the most nutritious and calorie rich parts of each caught fish.

For wolves, this type of predation event can occur on native ungulates such as deer, moose, or caribou and livestock such as sheep. For example, a study in Minnesota found that after an unusually severe winter, white-tailed deer were in very weak condition and for a few weeks wolves killed deer at much higher rates than normal and only partially consumed the carcasses.

Surplus killing on livestock may be more frequent than on wild prey because livestock are typically more vulnerable to predation. On average there were about 3 surplus killing events on sheep per year and an average of 8.

Another factor is that corrals and other enclosures for livestock can make it easier to catch multiple livestock. Although uncommon, such events can have negative economic impacts for producers. Such events can also be viewed as needless killing, reinforcing negative perceptions towards wolves.

They are therefore important to minimize and prevent using approaches described below. Wildlife managers use a variety of strategies to prevent or reduce livestock conflict with wolves. Some tools are reactive, meaning management occurs after the conflict happened.

Other tools are proactive, meaning management occurs prior to conflict. Management actions are often situation-dependent and involve an integrated approach, combining both lethal and non-lethal methods. Lethal methods can include regulated hunting proactive or targeted removal reactive.

Regulated hunting of wolves can limit wolf populations. Proactive non-lethal tools can help prevent conflict. Environmental Health and Protection Commons.

Advanced Search. Search Help. Privacy Copyright. Skip to main content. DigitalCommons University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Comments This cooperative annual report presents information on the status, distribution and management of the recovering Rocky Mountain wolf population from January 1, through December 31, Included in Environmental Health and Protection Commons. Search Enter search terms:. Digital Commons.