Boise State Radio goes out with Defenders’ Phantom Hill wolf/sheep crew–
Audio 2. The ranchers have their say.
Lie Down With Wolves
by
Want to join the discussion?
Fantastic, here are the ground rules: No personal attacks, profanity, discriminatory language or threats. Keep it clean, civil and on topic. The Wildlife News does not fact check every comment but, when noticed, submissions containing clear misinformation, demonstrably false statements of fact or links to sites trafficking in such will not be posted.
Comments
To bad they didn’t stop them from killing some sheep earlier in the week. A famous pack with all those people watching and they still managed to kill some sheep. Not that I mind sheep are dumb and an easy meal.
You are right Hilljack, sheep are helpless, and I think they are one animal that wolves may sometimes kill with no intent to eat.
Wolves don’t hunt for fun because prey are dangerous, but sheep are another matter.
Why do we allow sheep to graze in Idaho’s rugged backcountry? For them to be safe you have to make the backcountry into a tame place.
If we totaled up all the damage the sheep industry has done to wild Idaho it would astronomical. Herders routinely shoot any bear,cougar, coyote or wolf that approaches their sheep. If they can’t shoot them, they call on the U.S taxpayer to do it for them through Wildlife Services. The IDFG now has to shoot any Bighorn that gets close to domestic sheep.
Mutton gets to be pretty old hat for food and many a deer or elk is shot for camp meat by sheep herders. I always thought that herders were required to stay with the sheep at night, but this recording says they don’t. “Too expensive.” I suspect that some of the woolgrowers that are too cheap to pay a $750/month Peruvian herder to stay with the sheep at night are multimillionaires.
I think some of the wolves kill an old ewe and are so repelled by the taste, that they kill another one or two just in case one of them is edible.
For them to be safe you have to make the backcountry into a tame place. That is the 1800s thinking that is so rampant still all over the west.