Wolves cause horse injuries near Daniel
Grizzly kills 10 sheep
by Cat Urbigkit

Wolves were confirmed as being the cause of two horses running through a fence and getting injured near Daniel over the weekend, according to Mike Jimenez of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Jimenez said that USDA Wildlife Services officials did confirm that wolves were involved in the incident and both horses were cut up in the fence. While Jimenez said it couldn't be confirmed that the wolves were actually attacking the horses, "The horses hit the fence because there were wolves there."

Both horses are expected to recover and no control action on the wolves is planned, Jimenez said.

Federal officials have received more reports of a group of wolves in the Daniel/ Warren Bridge area during the last week, but no confirmation of this report has been made, Jimenez said. No problems have been reported either.

The female wolf with pups, known as the Green River pack, have a new member. Her former mate was killed earlier this summer by federal officials after killing livestock in the area on several occasions. The Green River female's new mate is a black-colored, two-year-old wolf from the Teton pack. When asked if this male had been involved in livestock depredations in the past, Jimenez said while the wolf has been "at the right place, at the right time" when depredations have occurred, federal officials don't know "whether he's the guilty party or not."

Jimenez was particular in clarifying his agency's stance on wolves involved in opportunistic or sporadic livestock depredations versus wolves chronically involved in killing livestock.

Most wolves in livestock areas in western Wyoming have opportunistically killed livestock, Jimenez said.

"It's the ones that have chronically done it that we take out," Jimenez said.

"We try to make a distinction there," Jimenez said. "When it's chronic we jump on them pretty hard."

Jimenez also noted that although his agency receives criticism from both sides of the aisle, FWS does use radio-collars as a management tool, including in control actions. When federal officials recently killed two wolves out of a group in the Upper Green River region, the wolves in that group that were not wearing radio-collars were the ones that were killed. This left the collared wolves in place, so should further problems occur, the wolves can be located more readily.

In other federal predator news, Mark Bruscino of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department reported that a grizzly bear killed six ewes and four lambs on the Thoman family's domestic sheep allotment in Upper Green River region of the Bridger-Teton National Forest last Thursday night. Because federal officials didn't receive word of the depredations for several days, confirmation was eventually made over the weekend and no control action was initiated.