With the eyes of the community focused on wolf reintroduction, Colorado-based nonprofit organization Working Circle visited in Gunnison last week to share a novel approach to ranching with wolves.
A statewide ballot measure passed in 2020 mandated the reintroduction of wolves in Colorado, and Gunnison County is currently slated as one of the future release sites.
Working Circle’s recommendation is to focus on stock handling techniques and overall herd health. The nonprofit claims that these two approaches have been demonstrated not only to decrease the vulnerability of livestock to predation, but can also improve a ranch’s bottom line.
“Our philosophy is to look at practices that actually address the root cause of conflict, are sustainable and don’t add additional burden to the ranch,” said Karin Vardaman, Working Circle’s executive director and co-founder.
Mike Ensley is Working Circle’s rangeland specialist. He has 35 years of experience in ranching, including eight years spent managing ranches with active wolves, claiming zero cattle losses during that time. Wolves appear to be very selective in the livestock they attack, he said.
“I see herds that wolves target, and they go through other herds of cattle and across other ranches, and they target one brand.”
The reason for this, Ensley said, comes down to two main factors: livestock health, and livestock handling. Wolves tend to actively seek out sick animals as prey, he said.
“It’s my belief that these wolves can smell the sickness starting inside the cattle two weeks prior to when we can visibly see it,” he said.
This makes it essential to maintain the highest possible level of herd health, and the best way to achieve that is through the use of mineral supplements. Livestock with mineral deficiencies are known to be much more susceptible to disease, he said.
Aside from the increased risk of depredation, sick cattle represent a double financial hit to ranchers: treatment itself is costly, but so is the lost opportunity for weight gain, which translates into less money at the sale barn.
“If we can keep these cattle in absolutely top notch health as we can, through stockmanship and mineral and parasite programs, we are just miles ahead,” he said.
Dawn Hnatow, owner and founder of Cattle Up Stockmanship, spoke about livestock handling at the seminar. Hnatow was born into a ranching family in Canada and has worked with livestock her entire life. Hnatow learned her approach to stockmanship from famed livestock handler, Bud Williams, whom she first met on a feed lot in Alberta.
“Bud was a savant genius, who communicated very well with animals and not so well with people,” Hnatow said.
Hnatow spent the next 10 years learning everything she could from Williams, and now enjoys passing on that knowledge to others.
“What I hope to do here today is challenge some paradigms that we might hold with regard to why animals do the things they do, and why they react the way they do to us,” she said.
Being prey animals, it’s important to keep cattle in a “normal” frame of mind, responding to pressure in a way that is predictable and calm, she said. In a “stressed” state, they react in an unpredictable, chaotic manner. According to Hnatow, the key is clear communication with the animals that is consistent over time. In this way the animals become “conditioned.”
There is direct financial benefit to ranchers from improved livestock handling, Hnatow said.
“As an industry, we don’t understand what we’re losing by mishandling these animals. Nobody pulls a hundred dollar bill out of your pocket every time you run 25 pounds. off a steer trying to get him in a truck,” she said. “You just don’t think about it that way, but it’s real.”
Once wolves enter the picture, there is an even greater benefit to having livestock that are properly conditioned, Ensley said.
“Wolves need an opportunity or a reason to kill,” he said. “They don’t seem to get it when you have cattle that are in that state of mind.”
Both Ensley and Vardaman said they have seen first hand how wolves prepare to hunt by “testing” their prey first. The wolves do this by repeatedly darting towards individual animals then quickly retreating again. Cattle that are conditioned will stand their ground and show no reaction, and after a short time the wolves give up and move on.
Vardaman told seminar attendees there is no perfect solution to the problem of wolf-livestock conflict, but there are practices that have proven to be effective.
“Focus less on wolves, and more on your ranch,” she said.
(William Spicer is a Gunnison-based writer.)
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