Historically, sheep producers face many challenges—low market prices, shortage of labor, and predators. Flocks that summer on large-range allotments are especially vulnerable to losses from wolves.
Jeff and Cindy Siddoway are part of a multi-generation Idaho sheep operation with headquarters at St. Anthony and Terreton. Their sheep spend summers on Forest Service allotments near Jackson Hole, WY, Palisades Lake, and Victor. Some of their range is close to Yellowstone Park, and they have private land within 50 miles of the park.
Coyotes have always been a problem, but after wolf introduction 25 years ago, wolves became much more serious to deal with, like the August night in 2013 when they killed 176 sheep. A pair of wolves attacked the flock, running them down a mountain until they piled up—with some dying of suffocation.
Wolves often kill at night. The Siddoways have herders with their sheep, but it’s difficult to shoot wolves at night. The herder beds down with the sheep instead of going back to camp; he puts up a tent and sleeps with the sheep.
“When we lost the 176 head, the herders could hear it happening. They called us about 1 a.m. and said there were wolves in the sheep, but all they could do was shoot into the air to try to scare them away,” Cindy Siddoway says.
Wolf protection
Wolves are severely impacting ranchers in eastern Oregon and Washington, but those states’ political views and wolf policies are determined by population centers in their western cities, demanding that wolves still be protected.
There is a lot of misinformation about wolves. Early on, some wildlife groups went into the schools and told children how wonderful wolves are and that they should be protected. “Even here in our area, school kids view them as loveable dogs. The wildlife and environmental groups knew what they were doing, to get everyone on board with their views,” Siddoway says.
[inline_image file=”4addb76df6329d74ff3fec16e9399dad.jpg” caption=”Jeff Siddoway working sheep. Photo by the Siddoways.”]
“Defenders of Wildlife kept saying we could coexist with wolves, and that Defenders would be there to help deal with any losses.” But when the Siddoways lost 176 sheep in one night, no one compensated them for that huge loss.
“Even if a rancher is compensated for losses, it does not pay for all the time and effort creating the genetics we need in our sheep. That can never be replaced with x number of new sheep,” she explains.
“Some years back I had a conversation with Jerry Brady, from the Post Register. I explained that we try to raise the best sheep we can, and that just producing sheep as sheep would be like him producing his paper just to have it used as a mat in the bottom of our birdcage! We are producing something of value that’s being taken away when those animals are killed by wolves,” says Siddoway.
“The public doesn’t pay much attention to losses of livestock, but when they realize what wolves do to our guard dogs, they have more empathy. Wolves can literally rip those dogs apart. More people can identify with that because they have pets and care about them—and start to understand a little more what we have to go through,” she said.
Frank Shirts, a sheep rancher near Wilder, ID, says wolves have cost him a lot of money over the years. “Some of the first wolves introduced were on my sheep range. My brother had more than 170 sheep killed at one time, and eventually went out of business because of wolves and the folks who didn’t want sheep in the same areas with bighorns,” Shirts said.
[inline_image file=”f319c6388f590379fe3a88c4805636b0.jpg” caption=”One of the Helle family’s guard dogs. Photo by the Helles.”]
“The worst thing about wolves is that we must hire extra people to protect the sheep. I need a pack string with every band and a man with those sheep. We can’t ever leave them unattended—not for lunch, or for anything. Someone has to bring lunch to the herder,” he said.
The herders are afraid to keep the sheep down in the brush at night. “But if they come back to the bedgrounds too early, there’s nothing to graze. With disruption of our typical routine by wolves, it costs us about 7 to 8 pounds per lamb,” he explained.
Because of wolves, many sheep ranges are no longer as extensive as they once were. “We used to take sheep into the area by Hells Canyon on the Oregon border and north of Boise and around McCall and Cascade and up through Idaho City. Now there are too many wolves in some of those areas. The wolves even hit us near Boise, in the low country close to those houses,” said Shirts.
“We get compensated for verified kills, but that’s a mere fraction of what we lose. If you have 1,500 lambs in a band and each lamb is 6 to 7 pounds lighter than it should be, the loss adds up on 10 or 11 bands,” he says.
John Helle, near Dillon, MT, is third generation on a ranch started by his grandparents. He has Rambouillet sheep and uses wool in a clothing line (Duckworth) he helped create. In June after lambing, herders take multiple bands 60 miles into the mountains to graze allotments in the Beaverhead-Deer Lodge National Forest. Each band has two herders, two horses, several guard dogs, and trained border collies.
[inline_image file=”cf356af0bf3dd3600c019be01eef2156.jpg” caption=”The Helle family and crew. Photo by the Helles.”]
Predators are a huge problem. Ranchers were promised compensation for kills, but this does not begin to cover the losses. When a ranch has worked hard for decades to select and produce the kind of sheep (and wool) that the Helle family created, the genetic loss is irreplaceable.
“It also changes your operation,” Helle says. “We used to pasture our rams on part of our ranch at Rock Creek, but can’t do that anymore because they are too vulnerable to wolves. We must have herders with our sheep 24/7. There’s not much you can do when sheep are attacked, and preventing an attack takes a lot more people,” he explains.
“If sheep get scattered or separated from the band, they are at high risk. Sheep tend to stay together but they may go around a mountain and a few split off. When that happens, wolves will find that little bunch and kill them all—before we even realize they are gone,” Helle says.
His sheep graze on about 100,000 acres, and that’s a lot of country to keep track of. In Madison and Beaverhead Counties, ranchers formed livestock protection committees. “We assess each rancher 50 cents per head of cattle and 20 cents per head of sheep in Beaverhead County, and 10 cents per head of sheep in Madison County, to create a fund to help deal with predators—if we have to hire more helicopter time or get more trappers,” he says.
“We’ve also had to deal with lawsuits from the other ‘wolves’ in human form—the so-called environmental groups. They don’t want to solve these issues or they’d be out of a job. The livestock industry doesn’t accomplish much by trying to compromise with these groups because they keep moving the goal posts. You go back to court, and the court system is rigged in their favor.”
“We have found a few groups, however, that are serious about conservation—and we can talk, because we have a lot in common.” They want to curb development and maintain open space and the rancher is their best ally. — Heather Smith Thomas, WLJ correspondent
