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Wolves get shocks to stop killing of cattle WASHINGTON (AP) – Captive wolves in Montana are being trained to shun cattle in favor of natural prey such as buffalo in an experiment in which the wolves are zapped with an electric shock when they approach livestock. The federal agencies and private groups involved say they are trying to avoid killing wolves that develop a taste for beef. Critics call the experiment cruel. “We think it’s absolutely ridiculous that we should be trying to alter the natural behavior of wild animals, particularly to benefit a private industry that uses public lands,” said Andrea Lococo of the Fund for Animals. Government-funded livestock protection programs all but wiped out gray wolves from the contiguous United States by the 1960s. After wolves were put on the endangered species list, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1995 captured Canadian wolves and released them in Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho, hoping they would breed and repopulate the northern Rocky Mountains. Now, more than 250 released wolves and their offspring live in the Northern Rockies and more than 20 have been introduced under a similar program in the Southwest. Under the reintroduction program, wolves that repeatedly attack livestock can be killed. The three wolves involved in the Montana experiment – one about a year old and two that are 2 years old – were part of a pack that repeatedly attacked livestock during the spring and summer. Eight wolves in the pack were shot and the pack’s lead female died while struggling to avoid being collared as part of the experiment. The three juvenile wolves are being kept in a half-acre enclosure on media mogul Ted Turner’s Flying D Ranch in southwestern Montana. The wolves are fitted with collars that can provide both an annoying noise and a mild electric shock. Researchers then put a calf into the pen wearing a transmitter that gives the wolves shocks if they got “within biting distance” of the calf, explained John Shivik, the Agriculture Department researcher leading the project. The calf was unharmed, even after researchers left it in the pen with the wolves overnight. Officials plan to release the wolves back into the wild in mid-October, said Ed Bangs, who heads the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s wolf recovery program in Montana. Young wolves learn how to hunt from their parents and other adult wolves. It’s hoped that through the $40,000 experiment that the offspring of the trained wolves will learn to stay away from livestock. “Leaving the wolves out there killing livestock isn’t an acceptable solution, because they’re just going to be teaching their offspring, and the problem gets worse,” said Hank Fischer of Defenders of Wildlife, who supports the experiment. Critics say ranchers should learn to live with a few animals being picked off by wolves and say it’s particularly cruel to try to shock wolves into avoiding cattle. “If we want wild animals in wild areas we can’t be turning them into Pavlovian dogs, because they’re no longer wild animals,” said Lococo, who lives near Jackson, Wyo. Shivik said he shocked himself with one of the collars and said the jolt is milder than the zap from static electricity. Trying to change the wolves’ behavior is better than killing them, the researchers said. “I suppose if you could crawl in the head of a wolf, they might say, ‘I’d rather live four months in captivity and get shocked rather than get shot in the head with a shotgun,’ ” said Mike Phillips of the Turner Endangered Species Fund, which is hosting the experiment and paying about half its costs. Critics include the Humane Society of the United States, which called the shocks “unacceptably cruel” in an e-mail to members in July. However, Phillips, Bangs and Fischer noted that the Humane Society gets payments from Radio Systems Corp., a company that makes similar training collars for domestic dogs and uses the Humane Society logo in its advertising. Humane Society spokesman Howard White said Tuesday the group had ended its deal with Radio Systems. A company official said the arrangement was still in effect. “The Humane Society wouldn’t be putting their logo on our packaging, no matter what the relationship, if they thought the product was in any way inhumane,” said Bob Andrysco, a dog behavior expert who works for Knoxville, Tenn.-based Radio Systems. Phillips said that if the anti-livestock training works, it could be incorporated into a proposal to use one of Turner’s ranches in New Mexico as a kind of training ground for wolves before they are released into the wild. Under the plan, the 200,000-acre core of Turner’s 600,000-acre Vermejo Park Ranch along the Colorado-New Mexico line would be set aside for wolves. Officials could release captive-bred wolves into the ranch and watch them to learn if they succeed at raising pups and hunting elk, deer and other native prey. The wolves would “experience a wild setting where their mistakes would not cost them their lives,” Phillips said. He said the Turner Endangered Species Fund is awaiting federal approval to go ahead with that program, which would not require any federal funding. Copyright 2000 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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