News
Livestock producers remain helpless against gray wolves
Livestock producers in the Upper Midwest remain mostly helpless protecting their animals from gray wolf attacks.
Miles Kuschel ranches in northeast Minnesota and says he talked to a producer from his area who recently lost a calf.
“He was about five miles south of us, so it’s near and dear every day.”
Earlier this month, a federal appeals court upheld the gray wolf’s listing on the Endangered Species Act list.
Kuschel tells Brownfield those who support the decision don’t recognize how dangerous these predators are to livestock in the Great Lakes region.
“When you get activist judges or people that don’t understand the wolf issue and think they’re just a big, pretty K-9 instead of a terminal predator, they don’t really understand the issue until they come up first-hand.”
While efforts to de-list the gray wolf have stalled in Washington, Kuschel says the Minnesota Department of Agriculture is working on a grant to assist affected producers.
This story is so misleading. Yes, wolf protection was restored by the Courts in 2014 and upheld under appeal but producers are not “helpless”. First, Minnesota DNR has the authority to kill wolves responsible for livestock losses. While the same authority does not exist in Michigan or Wisconsin, livestock losses due to wolves are low.
Keep livestock losses in perspective:
Wisconsin Dairy cows – Wisconsin has about 9500 dairy farms with 1,279,000 dairy cows http://www.wmmb.com/assets/images/pdf/WisconsinDairyData.pdf
Wisconsin ranks 17th in the nation for the number of farms with beef cattle. Wisconsin has 14,800 beef cattle operations with 265,000 cows http://fyi.uwex.edu/wbic/files/2010/01/Wheres-the-beef-2011.pdf
So between Dairy & Beef, Wisconsin has 24,300 cattle farms with 1,544,000 head of cattle. Yet, in 2016, there were only 30 confirmed livestock/wolf depredations and 11 probable attacks. So counting all verified and probable wolf livestock depredations, the risk to livestock is extremely low .00000265 especially when compared to other losses experienced by producers caused by weather and medical issues. Michigan livestock losses were even less.
Producers are not “helpless”. Effective non-lethal tools and compensation for losses are available in each of the states.
Research shows that hunting wolves to protect livestock is not effective in reducing conflicts.
Instead of crying wolf, these producers need to work with agencies to minimize any threat caused by wolves.