1-7 IAN Beef and Wolves
A recent research study at WSU examined the interaction between wolves and herds of beef cattle. I asked Executive Director of the Idaho Cattlemen’s Association, Wyatt Prescott, to comment. “There has been a lot of study done in Western Idaho on beef cattle wolf interaction and what that research was looking to find is what kind of decrease in performance those animals have with wolves in their environment. It is easy to go out and measure every animal that a wolf has killed. You have a carcass. It is not as easy to measure how many less pounds they put on because they are continually stressed and being chased by wolves. The number one health impact on cattle is stress and that is why we practice all of the low stress animal handling techniques. Throw a bunch of wolves and amongst them and you better believe that they have a lot of stress and more health problems. This study is trying to measure what decrease in performance can be on cattle with wolves in their environment. Not only in terms of performance in weight gain but also in terms of conception rates and reproduction. As an industry, we do everything that we can to treat our animals well and give them the best quality care and when it is time to harvest them we do it in a humane way. Wolves quite frankly do not do that. They kill for fun and chase cattle and teach their pups to kill. Sometimes nature is cruel But as an industry we do not have to be.
