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THIS NEEDS TO BE SHARED!
Did you think it was a good idea to release apex predators? Think again!
“Jordyn Gittleson is with Lee Gittleson in Walden, Colorado.
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I'd like to paint a picture for you: after all your "typical" daily ranch chores of feeding, checking cows, treating any sickness or injury and breaking ice for water you drove through your cow herd a few times after dark to make sure there's no suspicious activity and hopefully scare off any wolves lurking in the distance. Finally you go in for a few hours to rest before dawn when you'll rise and do it all over again. You do it with joy and passion because you love your animals and you do it alone because the only "hired hands" you have are your sons who have "town day jobs" to be able to fully support their families and occasionally their wives when they're not chasing toddlers or likewise working in town.
Now imagine going back out for your morning check just a few hours since you last saw your cows only to find this. One of your mother cows ripped to shreds but still alive.
Early this morning, wolves came into our pregnant cows and chased them through a fence and tore this cows stomach, legs and flank to pieces. They didn't kill her for food, just injured her beyond repair.
Where are the animal rights activists now? Are they shedding a tear for this cow who stood no chance against a pack of apex predators? Are they volunteering their time to help check cows around the clock?
These wolves came down from Wyoming, already killing domestic animals and livestock alike before Colorado even introduces the proposed 250 wolves voters voted for.
THIS is the consequence of putting an environmental and wildlife science question on a ballot for uneducated voters to decide.
Here are just 3 facts you may (or probably didn't) know about the wolves and their introduction to the western US. I encourage you to research this issue even further!
1. Did you know wolf attacks and even just wolf presence creates a stress response in cattle herds that result in lower birth weights, higher spontaneous abortion rates and a greater likelihood of animals getting sick?
2. Did you know that anywhere that has seen repeated wolf attacks on livestock have always had to end in entire pack of wolves being killed? Once a pack of wolves learns how much easier it is to attack domestic livestock (or once they decimate a big game population to meager numbers) there is no going back. When you tie ranchers hands so that they can never meet a wolves deadly force with their own deadly force you set both the wolves and the ranchers domestic animals up for failure.
3. Did you know that Idaho is now hiring private contractors and paying citizens up to $1,000 per wolf that they kill, aiming to reduce the population there by 90%? For a state like Colorado which is out of money to begin with, the cost of introducing the wolves coupled with the cost that goes into managing them doesn't make sense, especially with other states to look at of clear examples as to what's to come.
I'll leave you with this picture that tells the story better than I can.”
-Shared from local rancher Sheid Ranch.
) but maybe we are living what was the point all along. Predators control the deer……..not pesky hunters who vote, complain, and are exiting this earth in droves without being replaced.
