By John L. Moore
It began early the day before Thanksgiving. I was feeding horses in the dark when I heard a strange sound to the north where the gray, blue and black gumbos are a jumbled maze.
The noise was the distressed chatter of coyotes. I heard their gossip for only a moment, and then the morning became silent. An hour later, I drove three miles in that direction, parked and began a long trek into the badlands to scout for big mule deer.
Only a quarter-mile from the truck, I cut a large canine track. Dogs again, I thought. A mile to my east was a rural subdivision. Years ago, we were troubled by a pair of German Shepherds that roamed from there. They killed a number of our sheep before we killed one of them.
A few years later while fencing, I noticed a big coyote hunting mice in the distance. I got my binoculars on it and was shocked by its size and unusually long, black guard hair. This, I knew, was not a pure coyote, but a coyote-dog hybrid. I'd known this pairing to happen before. When I was a child, our cow dog ran off with a coyote pack. I later discovered a coyote shot from the air by government hunters. Its muzzle was unusually broad, and its hair was almost blonde. My father agreed it had to be a pup from the runaway cow dog.
When I first cut the track, the thought of wolves didn't enter my mind, even though there had been recent sightings in our area. Officially, there were no wolves within 200 miles.
I moved deeper into the badlands with the rising sun at my back and a crisp breeze in my face. As there are no pasture roads in this area, it is lightly hunted, and I expected to see a score of deer with two or three mature bucks. I reminded myself to be patient and constrained. Any animal dropped would be packed out, either on my back or on a horse's. The country was too rough even for a game cart.
Deer sign was everywhere, but there were no deer. I painstakingly searched each deep cut and constantly stopped to glass distant skylines. Nothing.
Suddenly, on the top of a brushy mesa, my path intersected the trail of a large canine. The tracks on top of gray hardpan were as distinct as if CSI had just dusted for prints. The trail stretched clearly for 50 feet before disappearing into an island of bunchgrass.
I'd seen wolf tracks before. Three years ago, I was on wolf spoor daily while hunting black bear in Ontario. I had, in fact, shot a young male wolf from 40 feet while attempting to rouse a bear from timber by chirping on a predator call.
I examined a track closely. It exceeded the length of my index finger. No coyote leaves a track that large.
Then I saw the second prints. A smaller canine had traveled a course just 20 feet to the right of the larger animal. A wolf and her pup, I thought. I remembered the rumors I'd heard of a pair of wolves being seen in the area. One was large and dark; the other smaller and gray.
It finally dawned on me why I was not seeing any deer.
I tried to reason that it could still be dogs from the subdivision, but if so, they were a long way from their homes and could certainly be the same threat to livestock as a pair of wolves. Wolves can be hesitant to attack cattle, sheep or horses - they have a large range and an innate fear of man and his possessions - but roaming dogs, bored by chasing rabbits and frustrated by not catching deer, can quickly turn to running livestock. But should wolves begin to work on domestic stock, there is no limit to their carnage. They are killing machines.
I moved on with elevated alertness, though I didn't expect to see anything. The tracks were fresh, but even if they were only minutes old, the animals could be miles away.
Then, some 700 yards distant and across a deep canyon, I saw a doe and fawn running through the boulders at a butte's crest. Could they have seen me, I wondered, even though the wind was in my face, the sun at my back and I had been skylined only for an instant? I brought up my binoculars and watched as the doe paused, looked below her and to the south, then resumed running. She was not looking in my direction. She bounced 50 yards, stopped, checked her backtrail again, and then they disappeared over the horizon.
Whatever panicked the deer was in the bottom of that long gorge.
I had to get over there as quickly as I could. I had two choices. One was to drop off the butte into a drainage that led directly to the deep coulee. The slower way was to remain on top and contour around a deep, rocky pocket.
I chose the route that seemed quicker. It was the wrong choice.
When I got to the gorge, there was no sign of anything. The morning was warming, I was tired, had no predator call with me, and had work to do at home. But my greater consternation was this: If they were wolves, I could not shoot them. It would be, actually, a federal offense. But as a livestock man, could I not do so? I told myself that whatever the invaders were, they were probably long gone. I made the long hike back to my truck.
That evening, I called three of my neighbors in the subdivision. One was the county sheriff, another a wildlife expert, and the third a government cowboy at a range research station. None knew of any dogs roaming from the subdivision or even of any dogs that might fit that bill.
On Thanksgiving morning, I returned to the area with a camera to capture photographic evidence. It didn't take long to find sign. Walking in from the opposite direction, I cut the first track a half-mile west of the big gorge, and more tracks were everywhere, including in the dry creek bottom below the rocky butte.
As I write this, we've received cold weather, and snow and ranch work has kept me from returning to look for fresh sign. When I can, I will try to determine for certain if the problem is roaming dogs, but I know if the wolves are not here yet, they soon will be.
When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone Park a decade ago, someone forgot to tell them the rules. They were, after all, supposed to stay in the park and prey only on weak, aged and diseased elk and bison.
Depleted game numbers, and ranchers and outfitters forced out of business, are evidence that wolves are rule-breakers. They don't follow man's silly notions or pay attention to misinformed media reports.
They kill, eat and kill again. They do what wolves do and will do so with impunity until man becomes an active part of the equation.
Do I like the idea of wolves in the wild? Yes.
Do I like the present reality of wolves being untouchable? No.
John L. Moore
GunHunter Magazine - July 2006
Buckmasters | GunHuntermag.com | Rackmag.com | BADF.org | YoungBucksOutdoors.com