Wildlife concerns

Incoming president Arvid Nottveit said wildlife pressures have become a dominant issue for producers across the province.

“The elk population just really exploded, and we have to work with producers to mitigate the effects of that,” he said.

A provincial report from back in 2011 put Manitoba’s elk population as stable around 6,500 animals.

The 2023 big game survey, meanwhile, estimated elk numbers around Manitoba’s Porcupine Mountains, Duck Mountains and Turtle Moutains. The survey reported a minimum 107 in the Porcupine Moutain surveyed region, 625 in the southwestern region around the Turtle Mountains and 1,158 in the Duck Mountains.

That survey covered only patches of the province, however, and did not include major elk region Riding Mountain National Park. The Government of Canada estimates about 1,800 elk in the national park.

WHY IT MATTERS: Manitoba beef producers are pushing for real fixes on elk, predation and Crown lands while bracing for trade uncertainty and tighter margins behind today’s strong cattle prices.

Predation from wolves and bears is another hot button issue. Wild boars are also becoming more of a problem as their populations continue to grow in Manitoba, Nottveit added.

Last April, the federal and provincial governments launched the Livestock Predation Prevention Program, a permanent successor to the industry-led pilot project that ended in 2023.

Resolutions approved by delegates at MBP’s annual general meeting, held in Brandon on Feb. 11 and 12, include continued lobbying for provincial analysis of elk and deer populations, financial assistance for fencing and compensation for wildlife damage to crops.

Producers are also increasingly concerned about feed losses and herd health impacts tied to wildlife.

Wildlife and disease concerns intersect with broader traceability discussions that have surfaced in recent months. It is important that producers facing disease outbreaks are supported appropriately, Nottveit said.

“I really want to make sure that ranchers that have disease outbreaks on their herds are treated fairly and … it’s as stress-free a situation as can possibly be.”

Past president Matthew Atkinson said wildlife damage, particularly from elk, has also been a major file during his six years on the board.

“Wildlife issues have really dominated, both in terms of the predation on livestock as well as impact on crops, from largely elk, but from wildlife in general,” he said.

Crown lands unsettled

Alongside wildlife advocacy, MBP continues to push for long-term stability on Crown lands.

“We need a long-term, stable plan going forward,” Atkinson said. “We need that to be settled and consistent.”

He acknowledged the file has created divisions within the membership.

“It’s either a major priority or it’s no priority at all,” he said.

Last October, the province extended its rental rate freeze on Crown land forage leases into the 2026 growing season.

Trade uncertainty

Trade uncertainty and the upcoming CUSMA review with the United States and Mexico remain on the radar, though provincial influence is limited.

“It’s a hard thing to negotiate our way through,” Atkinson said. “It’s not a typical negotiation.”

Nottveit highlighted the critical need to sustain robust cross-border cattle movement, given the close integration between the Canadian and U.S. beef industries.

Strong prices, tight margins

Despite high cattle prices, both leaders cautioned that rising input costs continue to squeeze margins.

Atkinson called the current market strength “overdue,” but said producers must use the opportunity wisely.

“It’s time that we start looking at … the tools available to us to make them as profitable as we can and to ensure that we can be profitable when things aren’t at their highs and move ahead from there,” he said.

For Nottveit, the focus in the coming years will be on practical supports that help grow Manitoba’s cow herd, which sits at historic lows.

“There’s a lot of work that can be done still, to make it viable for young people, especially to make a living raising cattle in this beautiful province,” he said.

Note: A previous version of this story mistakenly reported Manitoba’s estimated elk population at 605. The Co-operator regrets the error.

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It’s the second year in a row that MBP’s District 10 meeting in the Arborg area, held Oct. 19, featured a resolution to overhaul Manitoba’s Problem Predator Removal Program.

The Interlake is a hotbed for predation. Northern reaches of the district have more wolf predation than areas further south.

Why it matters: Predation continues to be a serious issue for livestock producers, despite programs meant to sponsor prevention efforts or remove problematic coyotes, wolves or foxes.

The provincial program is administered through the Manitoba Trappers Association. Producers can invite trappers to their farms to deal with predators that have attacked livestock or pose a human safety risk.

The farmer must provide proof of predation, usually a carcass, and apply for the Wildlife Damage Compensation Program offered through Manitoba Agricultural Services Corp., which compensates farmers for predation losses.

At that point, the farmer is eligible for support through the predation program. They can then contact the trappers association with their MASC claim number and, in theory, a trapper would be assigned to their case.

That doesn’t always happen. Beef producers say there’s not enough incentive for trappers to sign on to the program.

Registered trappers are paid an hourly rate and mileage to and from the farm’s location, but the funding allocated to the program is fixed and, according to the Manitoba Trappers Association website, trappers have a limited number of hours to deal with a specific request. And since the fur market has dwindled, pelts are not as valuable.

During the meeting Oct. 19, one farmer said they were told they were too far away when they called the trapping association to request a visit.

“What it boils down to is that the overall program just doesn’t have the administrative coverage,” said MBP general manager Carson Callum. “So, the trappers that have to expend fuel to haul all their equipment out are not seeing a return. The incentive for them is not there.”

In an interview after the meeting, Callum said the resolution was no surprise.

“We’ve seen a downturn in the number of skilled trappers able to remove those problem predators in an effective and timely manner,” he said.

“The resolution ties into MBP working with new government and department staff to look at the overall program and see what resources are potentially missing. The amount that [trappers] get paid, with input costs, the cost of fuel and everything else, is just not sufficient.”

Looking west

Callum said MBP is studying how other jurisdictions handle the issue, and B.C.’s program looks promising.

In 2016, the British Columbia Cattlemen’s Association implemented changes to its own program, which operates in collaboration with the province and the B.C. Trappers Association. Trappers are paid for results. They get $500, plus mileage, to set their traps, $750 for every wolf they remove (based on whole pack removal) and $250 for coyotes.

“It’s actually a program we’re pretty proud of,” said Kevin Boon, general manager of B.C.’s beef producer group. “It’s taken a couple of decades of work to get to where we are.”

Given higher cattle prices, every animal lost to predation is a huge financial loss to the farm, Boon noted. Even so, “when we talk to the trappers association, they feel they’re the biggest winners in the program.”

But the program is costly. According to a 2020 article in the Narwhal, it cost the B.C. government $450,000 in 2018 alone. In comparison, Manitoba spends about $61,000 annually, Callum said.

In the public eye

B.C.’s program operates under a permit issued by the provincial government. Every time the permit is reviewed, consultation is done with First Nations to ensure it doesn’t infringe on Indigenous rights or reconciliation requirements.

The BCCA also consulted with advocacy and conservation groups as the program was being developed to minimize impact on wild ecosystems.

“That’s why the whole pack removal came in,” said Boon. “The requirement comes from the advocates to protect the canines. They said that if we weren’t removing an entire pack, we were actually just splitting up the pack and increasing the problem.”

Boon said the program does have critics.

The same Narwhal article included comments from Ian McAllister, founder of the British Columbia wolf-advocacy group Pacific Wild, who said the killing of 700 wolves in the first four years of the program was “staggering.”

“There is so much evidence and information that shows that education and best practices and animal husbandry in the ranching community will allow wolves to coexist with livestock,” McAllister was quoted as saying.

Callum doesn’t discount those best practices.

They’re the basis behind Manitoba’s Livestock Predation Prevention Pilot, a three-year program started in 2020 to gauge the scope of predation in the province and test mitigation measures ranging from specialized fencing to better deadstock composting pens, lighting and fladry wire.

“Predator removal does not involve doing a mass cull of predators. It’s trying to make sure that those problem ones that are causing losses on your farm and deaths on your operation are controlled,” Callum said. “You can still live in a symbiotic relationship with all other wildlife.”

Removal is a measure of last resort.

“Whether it’s improved fencing infrastructure or utilizing any new technologies to keep those animals away, producers will try to do that on their own to mitigate it, but when those problem predators roll in, producers often need that extra support.”

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In particular, according to farmers stepping up to the mic during the Manitoba Beef Producers (MBP) annual meeting in early February, there are issues with wolves.

Interlake producer Glen Metner said that farmers in his area have individually lost dozens of head, sometimes despite the use of guardian animals and despite a number of wolves being removed.

His district sponsored a resolution looking for more provincial investment, including a rapid response process. The resolution gained overwhelming support from MBP members.

Why it matters: Livestock predation has been an ongoing thorn in the side of outdoor livestock sectors, despite initiatives meant to test mitigation measures.

Producers can currently get help from the Manitoba Trappers Association through the Manitoba Problem Predator Removal Program. That program is available for farms that have registered a loss that year through the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation.

But producers argue that there are often not enough trappers to go around, and that by the time someone from the trappers association arrives, additional losses have often occurred.

“It puts quite a stress on the producer,” one farmer, Robert Metner, said in support of the resolution.

Mary Pazuik, an MBP director and producer near Dauphin, noted there have been increased problems on the western edge of the district around Roblin.

Those are some of the same areas where chronic wasting disease was found in the last few years, and where tighter deer population controls were instituted, she noted.

There is currently no official substantiated link between those issues and increased predation in the area.

“As long as you can live with the animals, that’s great, but once you’ve got one or two generations that have been trained to feed on your animals, there is no other option with them…They’re not going to go back to chasing something through the bush if they can have their plates in front of them,” Pazuik said.

Former MBP president Tom Teichroeb also spoke in favour of the push.

There is an “approximate 15-time return” for any funds the government puts to tamp down on predation when compared to the insurance payout for losses, he argued.

“I think we really, really need to move to that stage where we’re dealing with this,” he said. “We’ve talked about this for 20 years.”

Hard to pin down

Wolf behaviour can present a challenge for removal, said Ray Bittner, lead of MBP’s Livestock Predation Prevention Project (LPPP).

“There are three different types of wolves that are an issue,” he said. “One is an alpha pair with a bunch of pups. So, they’re going to live in your pasture and a couple of neighbours’ pastures.

There is the pack of wolves, which is young, immature wolves or older wolves that haven’t found a place yet and they run around the community, not just one or two pastures. They run around thousands of acres, a 20 to 30 mile circle and they come back every 20 days or something like that. And then the final issue is the lone wolf.”

That last classification, Bittner noted, ranges too far, too quickly for most removal methods. Likewise, he said, removal would be a challenge with the pack of wolves, given their large range and sporadic return schedule. That makes the localized pair the easiest to remove.

And while the project has been testing means to keep predators and livestock safely away from each other, “once they’ve caused carnage and grabbed cows and calves and yearlings and stuff like that, it’s come to a point where they’ve exceeded their stay,” Bittner said.

The LPPP was established in 2020, following repeated calls for a deeper look into predation and how to avoid it. Since then, the project has attempted to hone in on actual predation numbers in Manitoba, as well as put a laundry list of prevention strategies to the test.

As of late 2021, the project rolled out funding to partially cover things like veterinarian consultations, predator-resistant fencing and GPS ear tags or collars to track cow location and behaviour. Producers could get help to install game cameras, fox lighting and fladry wire to discourage predator proximity and deadstock composting to avoid unnecessarily enticing predators into the pasture.

The project is now in its final year assessing those measures.

Some mitigation measures, however, are ill-suited to the big ranch, producers at the February meeting argued.

“I know the other methods are great. They do not work in a Manitoba, larger rural setting, so we need to move on,” Teichroeb said.

Pazuik, likewise, noted that some mitigation measures tested in her area seemed to have little effect in large operations.

The issue is one of geography more than farm size, according to Bittner. Operations that pasture a distance away from the home quarter have more challenge in keeping predators away.

“The first thing that Manitoba as a whole needs to do is we need to improve our knowledge of population of wolves,” Bittner said.

He noted that if populations are excessive in one region there are clear signs like beef cattle losses and wildlife losses like declining moose populations.

“We’ve seen that, where moose [hunting] areas in Manitoba are closed, because there’s almost no moose left,” he said.

When that happens there’s justification for a year-round trapping program, managed with data from aerial surveys and other sources, to manage the wolf population, he added.

“Manitoba Beef Producers is not calling for a wolf cull. We’re calling for population management based on data,” Bittner said.

A producer study launched by the LPPP in 2020 reported that coyotes made up the bulk of farm losses, although those numbers included both cattle and sheep. Wolves accounted for just under 23 per cent of the loss.

A five-year analysis of predation insurance claims from 2015-2019 found 7,675 lost beef cattle, most of which were calves.

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The move gives states in the continuous United States the authority to manage their local wolf populations, including by allowing them to be hunted. It will mainly affect wolf populations in the upper Midwest, Colorado and Pacific Northwest because wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains were previously delisted. Wolves have never been federally protected in Alaska.

Department of Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, who traveled to Minnesota to announce the delisting at a wildlife refuge, said the gray wolf had exceeded all conservation goals and no longer met the legal definitions of a threatened or endangered species.

There are about 6,000 gray wolves in the lower 48 states, up from about 1,000 when they were added to the endangered species list in the 1970s after being hunted, trapped and poisoned to near extinction.

The International Wolf Center in Minneapolis estimates Canada’s population of gray wolves at about 60,000, second only to Russia’s. Worldwide, the gray wolf is considered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature to be a “species of least concern.”

The Canadian wolf population is considered stable-to-increasing and it remains a game species in most of Canada, according to the IWC.

Delisting the gray wolf in the U.S. is a win for sportsmen and ranchers in that country who argue larger numbers of wolves have diminished herds of big-game animals such as elk, and also prey on livestock.

“Impacted communities will be able to determine how best to preserve gray wolf populations while protecting other native species and livestock,” Utah Senator Mike Lee said in a statement.

Conservation groups said the species has yet to recover in much of their former range, including northern California and the Northeast, and said the timing of the move appeared to be an effort to win votes for President Donald Trump in Midwestern states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota days before the Nov. 3 election.

“Wolves will be shot and killed because Donald Trump is desperate to gin up his voters in the Midwest,” Brett Hartl, chief political strategist at the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, said in a statement.

— Nichola Groom is a Reuters correspondent covering U.S. environmental and energy policy from Los Angeles. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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Prokopenko, who is a Vanier Scholar completing her doctoral thesis out of Memorial University in Newfoundland, undertook the research to better understand the ecology of RMNP’s estimated 70 to 75 wolves and their prey. Her method was to study wolves with GPS-equipped collars, to determine areas of intense use, indicated by clusters of points in a specific area over time.

Thirteen animals from three packs were collared in 2016 and 14 animals from five packs were studied in 2017.

The GPS data allowed Prokopenko to determine specific wolf behaviour and to collect samples, including hair and scat, tested to determine animal relatedness and diet information. If prey was also found at a site, hair, bone marrow and a tooth were collected and tested to reveal genetics, condition and the age of the animal.

Prokopenko also found variation between wolf packs in their hunting behaviour, and not surprisingly, seasonal variation in diet, which is more diverse during the summer when smaller prey, like beavers or young ungulates are available. “In winter,” said Prokopenko, “we are seeing that RMNP wolves are changing their diet composition from elk to moose.” As in past research, testing of scat has once again revealed no evidence of domestic animals — so no livestock.

“We are also finding that boundaries between packs are not as distinct as wolf territories found in other areas,” she said (such as in Yellowstone National Park).

“In RMNP the core area of each pack is discreet, but the edges overlap. Wolves here seem more tolerant of other wolves entering their pack territory.” In spite of this, of the animals studied, two deaths were attributed to pack-to-pack aggression.

Of the 27 wolves collared, 14 died during the study; the two in the pack aggression, eight attributed to complications from disease, and four as a result of wolf/human interaction (two animals were shot, one trapped and one poisoned when venturing outside the park). Even though these few went outside the park, the GPS-collared sample population were observed to spend the majority of their time within RMNP boundaries.

“Given the interesting dynamics observed during this research project, Parks Canada will continue to monitor the wolf population in the future,” said Prokopenko. “This effort will inform the management and conservation of wolves in RMNP. In addition to learning about wolves in this area, the data is an important comparison for other wolf systems across North America.”

Grey wolves are an interesting species — the largest member of the dog family, and living in highly socialized packs with a strict hierarchy. They have a complex communication system and the care of pups is not restricted to the biological parents, as there are “babysitter wolves” within a pack to allow the parents to hunt.

The Anishinabe word for wolf (ma’iingan) means “our brother,” to say, “what happens to one happens to the other.” In Ojibway culture, wolves were said to have been put on Earth, “to show us the way.”

The 1995 reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park has taught us that they are crucial in conserving the health of ecosystems and the well-being of our environment. There, their presence helps keep the deer and elk population in check, and smaller numbers mean less overgrazing of riparian areas, improving the habitat for insects, birds and beavers. This allows beavers to resume their work of creating dams, thus, keeping rivers clean to the benefit of aquatic life.

Scientists agree that Yellowstone National Park is healthier now than it has been for years. Hopefully, we’ll be able to say that of RMNP, too.

Candy Irwin writes from Lake Audy, Manitoba.

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Manitoba Beef Producers members heartily adopted all six resolutions on predation put forward this year at the AGM, Feb. 8-9 in Brandon, most aimed at prompting provincial action.

Predation has been a long-standing issue between the producer group and the province, although the MBP executive has recently expressed some optimism about their relationship with Manitoba Sustainable Development.

“Show me another individual where you could say, ‘I’m going to take 20 per cent of your livelihood out of your paycheque every week,’ because that’s what predation is doing to some of these guys and the losses are significant,” Brian Lemon, MBP general manager said.

Glen Metner, representative for District 11 west of Lake Manitoba, says he is one of those with a significant loss to his herd.

Outside direct kills, the producer has noted an uptick in abortions that he says is from cows getting bitten, higher open rates and a decrease in calf weight.

“I’ve also noticed that when you have a wolf problem, that you have cows that won’t graze the land efficiently,” he said. “They’ll stay right close to the corrals where they are, so they overgraze one section.”

Metner wants wolves taken off the list of big game animals and looser restrictions on hunting, something that his fellow MBP members also endorsed when the resolution came up at the AGM.

Wolves are currently covered under any big game licence. Wolf season in Manitoba ran from Aug. 28 to March 31 last year, as wolf hunting and trapping seasons have been extended across Manitoba to protect the moose population, according to the 2017 Manitoba Hunting Guide.

On the tail of that resolution, MBP members voted to push government to add full-time staff dedicated to problem wildlife and put a more proactive prevention program on the books.

Members also want insurance prices to be moved. Prices should be based on the October five weight price for an animal, Metner argued, the price he says they would actually get when moving that animal to market, rather than prices earlier in the year.

“This year was really good, I found one in three (kills),” Metner said of his own insurance experience. “I got paid $945 and $1,055 when calves in October sold for $1,500. I got nothing for the ones that were lost. I got nothing for the ones that aborted, so basically we’re down 50 yearlings this year.”

Producers also want to get paid for damage from magpies and ravens. The birds may dig wounds into the exposed back or shoulders of cattle, and farmers have noted problems with infection or shipping that wounded animal, but the damage is not insurable under MASC’s wildlife damage policy.

Bears have offered another challenge. Producers in the Riding Mountain area spearheaded a resolution that would lobby government to forbid bear baits containing meat or animal fat.

Larry Clifford, who introduced the resolution Feb. 8, said he notes an increase in bear activity when baits are removed from land near his after every hunting season.

Where are the problems and what’s next?

All but two of this year’s predation-related resolutions stemmed from Metner’s region, although his testimony might be echoed by producers closer to the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border. The Interlake, northwest Manitoba (in particular around Riding Mountain National Park) and northern stretches of the province’s agricultural lands are all hotbeds for predation.

Lemon noted predation as one of the major issues on the MBP table, although he says the different resolutions brought forward this year will need different approaches.

“In the case of the magpie resolution, that’s really around a compensation program and being able to say, ‘If I get damage for this reason or that reason, I can be compensated, but for magpies I cannot,’ and it seems, in a lot of ways, almost arbitrary,” he said pointing out that annual crops can get compensation from certain bird damages.

“The predation file continues to be a hard one to push… there’s nobody who loves wildlife and seeing wildlife on their daily basis more than a cattle farmer, but just help us when they become a problem,” he added. “It’s unfortunate that we seem to be either save the wolves or save the cattle. Why can’t we find the middle ground that actually says, save the wolves, but when they become a problem, let’s save the cattle?”

Ben Fox, MBP president, says they are expecting, “measurable, deliverable action,” on predation from the province in the next year, although there is “a lot of work ahead of us,” on the resolutions passed Feb. 8.

“As far as which ones are going to be able to be more quickly acted upon, that really just falls back on which departments we’re dealing with and what entities we’re dealing with,” he said.

MBP will likely focus on resolutions with the most impact to producer profit, he said.

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The wolf hunt, running from Oct. 15, 2016 through to March 31, 2017, is to be allowed in wildlife management zones 43 (Melfort, Tisdale), 47 (North Battleford, Turtleford), 48 (Preeceville, Pelly), 49 (Hudson Bay, Porcupine Plain), 50 (Nipawin, Choiceland), 53 (Spiritwood, Shellbrook, Big River), 54 (Blaine Lake, Marcelin), 55 (Meadow Lake, Pierceland) and 68N (Loon Lake).

There is no limit on the number of licenses available, the province said, though the licenses are only available to Saskatchewan residents and are not available online. Licenses must be picked up at environment ministry offices in Meadow Lake, North Battleford, Spiritwood, Prince Albert, Nipawin, Saskatoon, Melfort, Greenwater Lake, Hudson Bay, Preeceville and/or Regina.

For this hunt, wolves are considered a big game species, so all existing big-game regulations for weapon type, clothing requirements and baiting will apply, the province said.

“Livestock predation by wolves is an ongoing problem for producers in areas near the provincial forest,” Environment Minister Scott Moe said in the province’s release.

“Allowing a hunting season in these areas will remove some wolves and cause others to be more wary of moving into open areas where livestock are present.”

A previous wolf hunt ran in two zones from Dec. 15, 2015 to March 31, 2016, following a pilot project in the Weekes area in 2014, when it designated wolves as a big game species for that specific purpose.

The province said at the time it wasn’t planning to create a “general” wolf hunting season, but to focus on “specific areas which meet established criteria.”

A wolf hunt, the province said in 2014, would “only be considered after traditional control methods have failed to reduce livestock losses.”

Hunters who get a licence for this wolf hunt will have to report their results within 14 days of the end of the season, the province said Wednesday. Those who don’t comply with that requirement will be blocked from buying licences until they do. –– AGCanada.com Network

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State biologists fatally shot two members of the so-called Profanity Peak wolf pack from a helicopter on Aug. 5 after confirming five fatal wolf attacks on livestock in that area, just south of the state’s border with British Columbia. Further lethal-control efforts were later called off.

But eradication orders were renewed, and expanded to the entire pack, on Aug. 19 when the state Fish and Wildlife Department determined the same group of wolves was behind additional attacks that left two calves dead and a third injured.

Aerial kill teams have since destroyed four more wolves, including a pup, and wildlife agents are looking for the remaining five members of the targeted pack, said Craig Bartlett, a spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Department.

“We’ve never taken out an entire pack before,” Bartlett said, adding officials could still decide at some point to suspend the hunt and spare some of the remaining wolves if livestock attacks appear to have been halted.

In the meantime, he said, the number of cattle killed or injured by wolves in the area had grown to 12.

The Profanity Peak wolves make up one of 19 wolf packs known to inhabit Washington, 15 of them in the eastern third of the state where federal Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves were lifted in 2011.

Wolves are still listed as endangered under state law, which allows officials to remove wolves found to be repeatedly preying on livestock. But the population has grown steadily since 2008, when the first pack documented in Washington in many decades was confirmed, and they now number about 90 animals statewide, Bartlett said.

The current effort targeting the Profanity Peak pack marks the third time state officials have used lethal means against wolves. The two previous efforts, in 2012 and 2014, resulted in the deaths of 10 wolves, but some members of those packs ended up being spared, Bartlett said.

— Reporting for Reuters by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles.

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A review of 25 years of data from lethal control programs from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services found that shooting and trapping the carnivores leads to more dead sheep and cattle in subsequent years, rather than less.

Writing in the journal PLOS ONE, WSU wildlife biologist Rob Wielgus and data analyst Kaylie Peebles say that, for each wolf killed, the odds of more livestock depredations increase significantly.

The trend continues until 25 per cent of the wolves in an area are killed, a rate of removal that is unsustainable for maintaining the species.

Researchers found that killing one wolf increases the odds of depredations four per cent for sheep and five to six per cent for cattle the following year. If 20 wolves are killed, livestock deaths double.

Work reported in PLOS ONE last year by Peebles, Wielgus and other WSU colleagues found that lethal controls of cougars also backfire, disrupting their populations so much that younger, less disciplined cougars attack more livestock.

Wielgus did not expect to see the same result with wolves.

“I had no idea what the results were going to be, positive or negative,” he said. “I said, ‘Let’s take a look at it and see what happened.’ I was surprised that there was a big effect.”

Wielgus said the wolf killings likely disrupt the social cohesion of the pack. While an intact breeding pair will keep young offspring from mating, disruption can set sexually mature wolves free to breed, leading to an increase in breeding pairs. As they have pups, they become bound to one place and can’t hunt deer and elk as freely. Occasionally, they turn to livestock.

Wielgus said wolves generally account for between .1 per cent and .6 per cent of all livestock deaths — a minor threat compared to other predators, disease, accidents and the dangers of calving.

He encourages more non-lethal interventions like guard dogs, “range riders” on horseback, flags, spotlights and “risk maps” that discourage grazing animals in hard-to-protect, wolf-rich areas.

“The only way you’re going to completely eliminate livestock depredations is to get rid of all the wolves,” Wielgus said, “and society has told us that that’s not going to happen.”

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Wolves were reintroduced to France in the 1990s under an international convention on wildlife conservation in Europe.

There are now an estimated 300 wolves in the country and the number is growing each year. According to France’s Federation nationale ovine (FNO), the national sheep producers’ organization, the number of animals they kill has risen too — by nearly two thirds since 2011 — and is likely to top 8,000 this year.

“We are asking that wolves be removed from sheep breeding regions because they are incompatible with our work,” FNO secretary general Michele Boudoin said.

She stressed that France’s “wolf plan,” which compensates farmers for sheep losses and pays for prevention measures and staff, cost the government nearly 15 million euros (C$21 million) in 2012.

“We don’t want the money, we want to do our job in good conditions,” she said as a flock of brown “Noires de Velay” sheep arrived at the meeting point.

Luc Bourgeois, a young shepherd from southeastern France, said he lost 150 of his 3,000 sheep this year. Ten were killed directly, he said, while the rest jumped in a ravine as they fled.

The farmers want the right to shoot wolves immediately if their flock is attacked, and are calling for a quota of wolf killings, currently set at 24 annually, to be increased or removed altogether.

Members of the FNO and the wider farm union FNSEA were due to meet Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll and the head of the environment minister’s chief of staff later in the day.

— Reporting for Reuters by Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris.

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