The Daily Inter Lake
Northwest Montana wolves well-behaved
Posted: Sunday, May 22, 2005 – 09:15:33 am PDT
By JIM MANNThe Daily Inter Lake

And for several years now, the packs of Western Montana have shown a strong preference for fleet white-tailed deer over plodding cattle or bison.

Compared to the far more numerous and often-reported livestock depredations carried out by wolves in the Greater Yellowstone Area and Idaho, Western Montana wolves have been keeping a low profile.

“It’s kind of surprising to people that most wolves are around livestock every day of their lives and they kind of choose not to attack them,” said Ed Bangs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s gray wolf recovery coordinator. “Given the unlimited opportunities for wolves to chase livestock, it’s kind of surprising, even to us who work with them, that there’s as few conflicts as there are.”

That observation holds true particularly in Western Montana, where only six cows and one sheep were confirmed as being killed by wolves in 2004. The Cook Pack of Idaho, by contrast, killed 85 sheep last year, an offense so severe that all nine wolves in the pack were destroyed by federal trappers in a helicopter hunt. And just two weeks ago, 11 sheep were confirmed as being killed by wolves in the Paradise Valley north of Yellowstone National Park. …

Sheep, Bangs said, are extremely easy prey not only for wolves, but also for coyotes, mountain lions, even eagles.

Despite the abundant populations of white-tailed deer in Northwest Montana, the region’s wolf populations have remained relatively low for years,

“This year, our estimate of wolves was 835 wolves (throughout Idaho, Wyoming and Montana) and only 59 of those are in Western Montana,” Bangs said. “The vast majority of wolves are in Yellowstone and western Idaho, where there are huge blocks of contiguous public land.”