I was disappointed to read Greta Kaul’s Feb. 10 article, “Here’s how much Minnesota has paid out for wolf kills of livestock over the last two decades.” To listen to the livestock producers in the article, one would think that wolves are out there en masse decimating livestock, but this simply is not the case.
What the article didn’t mention is that wolves cause the deaths of less than one-tenth of 1% of Minnesota’s total livestock. Or that the average amount paid by the state to reimburse producers for livestock killed by wolves — $135,000 for the past decade — is 0.03% of the $394 million Minnesota estimates it will spend on agriculture in FY 2020-21.
Gray wolves play a vital role in regulating deer and other prey species, keeping disease in check and driving essential evolutionary processes. But some ranchers think the best way to deal with wolves that interact with livestock is to kill them.
That’s plain wrong.
There are plenty of tested, nonlethal options to safeguard livestock from wolves, including guard dogs and predator-proof fencing. Wildlife managers have observed that when wolves from a pack are killed, the pack is weakened, making it even more likely for them to go after young, vulnerable cattle.
A better approach for Minnesota to take in managing interactions between wolves and livestock producers would be for the state to increase funding for its Wolf-Livestock Conflict Prevention Grants. These grants are a step in the right direction — but the state has only awarded $300,000 since July 2017.
It’s not always easy living with wolves in our midst. They’re complicated, mobile and intelligent predators that require land, a prey base and careful management. Yet, over the decades, most of us have learned to live with wolves and appreciate the natural role they play.
Collette Adkins is the carnivore conservation director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
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Unless it’s your cattle, sheep or other livestock. Then all the percentages don’t matter. Easy to judge and second guess when it’s someone else.
For years, the number of wolves have supposedly stayed relatively flat. Yet I have seen more wolves, including one on the shoulder of I-35 by Mora, in the last 5-7 years than I have spending years in the northern woods, including 30 plus trips to the BWCA. Something isn’t adding up.
I do believe that wolves play an important part of the ecosystem in Minnesota, just not THE most important part. I would much rather see a moose, but with the wolves decimating the calfs, that’s not going to happen.
Percentages absolutely do matter. It indicates how little a problem wolves actually are and shows people that those who own livestock are sensationalizing their losses. Why don’t livestock producers advocate killing dogs and eagles when according to the USDA more dogs and eagles kill sheep than wolves? Why don’t livestock producers ask for reimbursement of losses from disease, injury, respiratory & digestive problems, because that is what most cattle are dying from NOT wolves. But unlike other businesses that have insurance and expect losses, you livestock owners think that you should be compensated for losses to a wolves that were on the landscape long before you came a long. You think those wolves deserve to die. Re: moose. The results are in and it isn’t the wolves decimated moose in MN, it’s the brainworm. Why aren’t you advocating for a reduction in the deer population when it is the deer giving our moose the deadly brainworm? Anyone who believes wolves play a crucial role in healthy ecosystems would never advocate killing them.
Well Collette, we have a problem, got a lot of folks that prefer to think by seat of pants old fairy tales and what ever is convenient with out causing your brain to function by actually studying how things really work, To investigate, catalogue and actually use proof, scientific repeatable, methods etc. oes not fit the we got all the answers and don’t need no schooling or city educated folks to tell us how it works crowd. I’m just curious what value they see in going to see doctors and the like, that’s all got to be junk medicine just like all that junk science, junk biology…..