Cattle make up a higher percentage of wolf diets than previously thought, a recently released study reveals.
Andrea Morehouse and Mark Boyce of the University of Alberta researched wolf predation in a 3,300 sq. kilometre area of southwestern Alberta last year and found that three wolf packs killed 50 cattle during the year-long study. That’s an average of 17 cattle killed per pack per year.
“We weren’t expecting to see quite that high a proportion of cattle in the diet,” said Morehouse.
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About 40 percent of the cattle killed were calves, 40 percent yearlings and 20 percent cows or bulls.
However, results don’t necessarily indicate an increase in wolf kills. Instead, it might reflect better data collection.
This study was the first to use GPS technology and radio collars on wolves. The approach allowed researchers to quickly arrive at kill sites to analyze data, which meant quicker collection of cattle carcass evidence and wolf scat.
Finding the remains of wolf prey is difficult, particularly in summer when cattle are on grazing leases in bush and forested areas.
“To our knowledge, it’s the first study that had happened in a livestock grazing landscape to look specifically at wolf diets,” said Morehouse.
“Wolf diet in the past has been analyzed using mostly, most typically, scat analysis. That gives you a pretty good picture of what they are eating. It doesn’t tell you anything about what they were killing.”
Ranchers can be compensated at full market value for livestock killed by wolves, but only if Alberta fish and wildlife officials confirm the kills. Probable wolf kills merit only partial compensation and no compensation is available for missing cattle.
The southwestern Alberta wolf study area represented three percent of the provincial land base but 37 percent of provincial predator compensation. Seventy-four percent of the payouts related to wolf kills.
Researchers separated their study into two seasons: June to October, when cattle are typically grazing, and November to May, when cattle are usually closer to home.
Cattle kills were lower in the latter period, but researchers found that wolves were then scavenging from dead stock disposal sites.
“In the winter, the striking thing that we saw was that wolves were scavenging a lot. A lot of their meals came from animals that were already dead from some other circum-stance,” said Morehouse.
“Maybe we want to rethink the management of dead stock and how they are disposed of.”
Reynold Bergen agreed. He was with Alberta Beef Producers when the group funded the wolf predation study.
“Stock that does die on the home place, it’s worth taking a second look at how we deal with them,” Bergen said.
“If dead stock service is available in that area, it might be cheaper than feeding wolves.”
He said the study also indicates a need to re-examine compensation rates available to ranchers who lose stock to predators.
Michael Roberts, who manages the 54,000 acre Waldron Grazing Cooperative that is within the wolf study area, recorded 15 wolf kills of cattle in 2008, none in 2009 and two in 2010.
Nevertheless, he wasn’t surprised at the study findings and has been managing cattle differently since working with Morehouse.
“We’re putting cows with calves in the areas where the wolves prey on cattle because, with the maternal instinct of the cows, it kicks in and they seem to fare a little better. They fight back.”
Roberts said no love is lost between ranchers and wolves, but he acknowledged that wolf control is a touchy subject.
“If the wolf population gets to the point where we can’t run cattle, what’s the next alternative? Sell the land for recreational purposes. And then there will be no wolf habitat. Calgary used to be wolf habitat, too. People have a tendency to forget that.”
Roberts said he and his crew try to kill the “offending wolves” that kill cattle, but have had limited success. Wolves will infill from other packs when their numbers get low.
“It seems like wolves become specialists. Either they kill moose or they kill elk or deer or beef. And what it boils down to is … during the grazing season, by far the greatest amount of available meat is beef.”
The cost of cattle killed by wolves is only part of the problem, said Roberts.
“It’s just the tiny, tiny tip of the iceberg, of what they can actually cost you. When they go to try and kill a beef, they don’t just pick one out. They run the whole herd to see who is the most susceptible at the moment, and they run them through fences, and we run into broken legs and stress on the cattle.”
There are also labour costs involved in rounding up cattle, sorting them and returning them to the right pastures.
Waldron records show wolves have always been an issue in the area, but populations were almost wiped out in the 1950s and 1960s through rabies control efforts.
Now ranchers are relearning the problem, said Roberts.
As for the solution, Morehouse said she is hoping for additional funding to continue the study and explore the factors that contribute to wolf predation on cattle. For example, certain habitat or specific geography may contribute to the number of kills.
“If we can try and identify some of these areas of the landscape that are perhaps more prone to depredation or more hot spots for this, we could … develop some new strategies to see if we can reduce any of those conflicts,” Morehouse said.
A strategy would suit Roberts. He thinks ranchers are willing to change management practices to mitigate the problem, but managing wolf numbers will also be necessary.
“We’d like to see a comprehensive plan by fish and wildlife. We want to see that they will and they can control the predation when it comes along.”
