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Wolf pack kills horse in pen at NM ranch. Discuss here

Sorry about the Horse. Here in North Wisconsin we are trying to get the wolf delisted as a protected spicies. Livestock losses are pretty common here. Wolf packs are rare, but if there is a lone cow there will be ten coyotes there in an hour. One nieghbor hre lost his dog. Had it tied to the back porch. Lucky we have an Elk herd just North of us as that seems to keep them fed. The idea of protecting the wolf was to help cut down on the whitetail deer population. Now we have too many wolves and too many deer.
 
Thanks Shorthornguy
this program is really planning a major expansion so I thought more people might want to get involved but so far, the interest seems lagging.
They have around 400 ready for release as soon as the new NEPA gets done. One would think AZ, NM, and Texas would be more concerned.

We are loosing dogs to this pack that killed the horse at a phenominal rate too. They are just coming into our private land and killing at will now, No management whatsoever. Even had a dog attacked with an 8 year old present. Nobody really cares.

These wolves are going to destroy the industry in NM and AZ if they don't kill someone first. Oh well wish people would sit up and take notice of the biological weopon our govt is forcing us to live with. But everyone looks out thier own window until they get gored by the bull.
 
Our state Livestock Dept. boys were out this morning earning their money...While I was gathering in the saddle horses I first heard their helicoptor- then watched them for sometime as they flew back and forth between the creek and the river--and I heard them shooting several times, so hopefully that means several less coyotes.. :D
 
Oldtimer said:
Our state Livestock Dept. boys were out this morning earning their money...While I was gathering in the saddle horses I first heard their helicoptor- then watched them for sometime as they flew back and forth between the creek and the river--and I heard them shooting several times, so hopefully that means several less coyotes.. :D
Click to expand...

Mild curiosity makes me wonder how many people, even those of us calving in open range situations sometimes a mile or more from home and having plenty of other work to do, who TRY to ride the pasture at least once a day, but often miss a day or more such as during a spring blizzard, having a large coyote population actually lose baby calves to coyotes?

Our ranch, more than 115 years in this area, and running quite a few cows in 400 to 1,000+ acre calving pastures on rugged, brushy terrain, has lost very few.

Ones I can recall were due to difficult birth leaving the cow unable to get up for a while, or a silly hiefer that ran off and tried to take other cows calves. And, yes, her calf was observed to be alive and well before being found near death from being chewed on.

On the total, though it has been a miniscule number, though even one is disgusting considering the horrible death for the calf as well as the financial loss to the rancher.

Incidentally, a relatively local coyote calling contest recently brough in 30 coyotes.

MRJ
 
MRJ- I don't know how they did today- but the last time they were in here they got 38 in just one morning out of this area of the creekbottom- which is about a mile wide and 2 miles long....And there have been folks hunting and they have been getting quite a few...A guy just don't realize how many there are until you get in the air.....

I wouldn't mind if they'd stay out in the hills- live off the deer- but there is about 3000 old cows out there in this area of the bottom about ready to start dropping calves in the next couple months- and like you say- its hard telling how many they actually get- besides the stress they put the old cows thru at night.......
 
This will be my 5th calving season that I will be out there nearly every day and my herd isn't the size of some of you folks out west but we have had close to 1000 calves born in the first 4 years (average of 250 a year just to be as clear as I can) and have never found one dead calf that had been chewed on and we do have coyotes. Have seen them in the pastures during the season when I do night checks but they don't get to close to the calves.. For the most part they are cleaning up aftebirth... Now, maybe it is the hunters or maybe a hog raiser keeps them fat off an illict bone pile somewhwere, I don't know but have never had a problem with the yotes.


Now... we have about 50 ewes too and we have had problems with lambs vanishing from the face of this earth.. never had a ewe done in though.. WE don't have wolves. we don't have lions (at least not a breeding pop) or bears but we do have tons of yotes... That being said I have heard stories of some one near us witnesssing foyotes eating a calf as it comes out of a cow.. This was from one of the FS spreaders who saw it at local place that calved right next to some old strip mine ground.
 
The average size of the cow calf operations in the Blue range wolf recovery area is 13 to 400 so your 1000 calves is a stunner to me.

We run 94 head of mother cows. We will not survive the wolves but did OK with coyotes lions and bears over the hundred years this ranch has been in existence. Even though on occasion we have seen coyotes pull a calf to eat it that was rare.

The wolves do it every time. They have also killed the calf eaten it then turned around killed the cow and just eaten her udder.
Look at the pictures on the website under the reality bites link.
Laura
 
I should rephrase that a bit. Never a fresh dead calf chewed on.. have seen some chewed on but only ones that I had seen dead earlier and moved to that place prior to burial. Again.. Our herd, total, is only 350 head of cows, the 1000 represents the first year at 140 and the high year of 400ish lst year.


My neighbor calves 450 cows a year + couple hundred heifers usually. The cows were always in the pastures and he doesn't think he has lost many at all to yotes over the year. I have known him for 7 years now and he hasn't lost one in that time span.. I do get nervous about them when I see them in the calving field but our cows don't get very spread out and I think that helps them. ..

I have seen a lot of pictures of predator damage. Most of those pics were out in Montana and I saw wolf kills and Bear and cat and yote... The worst ones I saw were dogs though... They just did stuff that I couldn't believe.. Not even the ones they killed but the ones they maimed or damaged so bad.. Feral dogs, or peoples precious Fido.. Didn't matter.
 
Well I pasture calve where there are alot of wolves and tons of yotes-the yotes will get the odd sick calf and abandoned twins but other than that not really a factor that we can't handle. I wonder if you don't have a different strain of wolf than we do because there's 100's up here. They cause more trouble running yearlings in late fall when they are teaching pups to hunt. as far as hiring helicopters to hunt them-the local trappers and hunters kind of keep them under control-that and the gazillion deer and moose around. a neighbor lost two or three calves to wolves a few years ago but they were a couple weeks apart when the pack moved through.
 
You are so lucky.

We can't do anything at all about our wolves. They are after all the most endangered species in the universe. Even Idaho and Montana can delist theirs but down here where we have Mexican wolves, or Lobo's we have to let them wreak complete havok and try not to react at all.

All we really have is an inbred wolf/coyote that the fish and wildlife bred up from 5 animals found in Mexico in the 80s. They are raising them in captivity and forcing them out into the wild, most of them have been severe problems and are more like feral dog packs with wolf superpowers.
Coupled with non management that has contributed to mass habituation and we are all in big trouble down here in the Southwest.
 

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