Wolf advocates pay $139,000 to ranchers for livestock losses

BOZEMAN, Mont. — Defenders of Wildlife paid out more than $139,000 in 2004 to Western ranchers whose sheep or cattle were killed by wolves, the group said recently.

That’s more than twice the $68,000 reimbursed in 2003, and a huge increase over the $7,480 shelled out in 1996, the first year after wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park.

“We did have a good jump” this year, said Suzanne Stone, the Northern Rockies representative for the group, which compensates ranchers for livestock killed by wolves.

Numbers show wolves killed more than twice as many sheep and cattle across the West this year than in 2003. As of Tuesday, wolves were blamed for the deaths of 110 cattle, 442 sheep and six other animals this year, the group said.

In 2003, that tally was 55 cattle, 210 sheep and 15 other animals.

With nearly 300 wolves now in the greater Yellowstone area and more than 400 in central Idaho, the number of livestock killed grew accordingly, said Ed Bangs, head of wolf recovery for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Helena.

“That’s the price you pay when you have more wolves running around,” he said.

While the wolf kills get a lot of attention, Stone noted they amount to a tiny fraction of the sheep and cattle killed by predators each year. In Montana, for example, coyotes killed 17,700 sheep and lambs in 2003, according to the Montana Agriculture Statistics Service, which polls ranchers every year.

Ranchers in that survey blamed wolves for 500 dead sheep and lambs, although just 210 were listed as confirmed or probable wolf kills by the federal government.

Defenders of Wildlife, which supported the reintroduction of wolves into the Yellowstone ecosystem, established the fund in 1987 to ensure ranchers are compensated for livestock lost to the predators. Since 1987, $474,000 has been paid out.

The group will reimburse the full market value of sheep or cattle lost only if wildlife officials confirm that the animals were killed by wolves. The group will reimburse 50 percent of market value for animals killed in what is officially regarded as a possible but unproven wolf kill.