When wolves were returned to Montana in 1987, Defenders of Wildlife launched a program to compensate ranchers for livestock lost to wolf depredation. The Washington, D.C.-based organization hoped to smooth the way for the recovery of the endangered species.
Since then, the group has paid out $213,489 for 259 cows, 550 sheep and 28 other animals in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
Now, with wolves on the brink of being removed from the Endangered Species list, the question is whether Defenders of Wildlife will continue to compensate ranchers for livestock lost to wolves.
Nina Fascione, director of carnivore conservation for the group, is not sure what will happen, though the fund used to make the payments is "very secure."
"We haven't made a determination yet," she said. "We've always said we'll assess that when the time comes."
Fascione said states such as Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan reimburse livestock owners, and that her group hopes Idaho and other Western states do the same thing.
But there's opposition to that idea.
Ted Hoffman, president-elect of the Idaho Cattle Association, said Idaho never wanted the wolves in the first place, and it "should not be expected to be singled out to bear the cost of feeding and managing the wolves. Since recovery was supposedly in the national interest, the nation's taxpayers should share equally in paying for it."
For now, the group will continue to pay compensation.
The group pays ranchers the animals' fall-market value, whether they're killed in the fall or not. If it's a possible wolf kill, Defenders pays half-claims, Fascione said.
"We try to accommodate that concern as well without paying for every sheep that disappears in the western United States."
The program has been "very well-received," Fascione said. "Most of the ranchers who receive money are very thankful to have it. Others will grumble that we didn't pay enough or pay in all cases."
The number of livestock that are actually killed by wolves is tough to gauge. Initial results of a cooperative study by Wildlife Services, the Nez Perce tribe and the University of Idaho suggest that for every calf killed by wolves and found by the cattle producer, as many as 5.7 additional wolf kills may have occurred without ever being detected.
Hoffman said the loss of calves is "the tip of the iceberg." Harassment to surviving stock translates into weight loss and fewer pregnancies, increased supervision and searches for wolves or lost calves. So while most ranchers accept the payments - the number of ranchers reimbursed in the three states now totals 186 - they don't accept them as total compensation for the trouble they're caused, he said.
Ranchers have gotten more adept at identifying wolf kills, said Carter Niemeyer, who did forensic work for Wildlife Services from 1974-2000 in all three states.
"There's an evolution to this thing," he said. "When wolves were first naturally recolonizing northwest Montana, I would say five out of 100 (calls) had to do with wolves. As the ranchers got more educated, they would contact us less often on speculating about a wolf kill."
More often, calls came in on actual wolf kills and the number of paid claims rose.
During the past six years in Idaho, the number of requests for assistance to deal with wolf predation problems has increased an average of more than 82 percent a year, while the number of wolves has increased an average of 71 percent a year.
Yet the number of livestock killed by wolves remains "miniscule," Niemeyer said.
"The wolf isn't ever going to impact the livestock industry (as a whole). The impact will be so small; it's almost immeasurable. It's the individual rancher that sustains losses, the one guy who gets singled out ... it quickly wrecks his profit line."
And, on occasion, causes him to lose the family ranch, Hoffman is quick to add. "For the few that have major problems (with wolves), or lower grade but chronic problems ... it may be likened to living with a chronic drought."
Margaret Soulen Hinson hasn't lost any cattle to wolves, but from 1996 to 2001 she lost 100 sheep. Defenders of Wildlife has been "very fair" in compensating her for market value, she said. If and when Defenders does stop paying, Hinson still has hope.
"I really think the chances of some innovative ways to do compensation might come forth. Idaho currently has a compensation for cougar and black bear. So whether the wolf will evolve into that in some way, I don't know."
Hinson would just as soon the wolf had never been introduced.
"But it was," she said. "I don't think the wolf is going away. Now that it's here, I think it behooves ranchers ... to work with people to find creative solutions."
Correspondent Karen Mockler can be reached through the Post
Register at 542-6757, or via e-mail at mwimborne@idahonews.com.
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