Hello everyone! I hope you all have had a wonderful last couple of weeks. We have been a bit slow on getting these blogs out due to the whirlwind of a summer we have had. As the heat and smoke activity picked up, so did the wolves.

While I was out checking cameras way out in the mountains the other week, I ran into one of the shepherds. He told me that his coworker had seen a few wolves in the morning messing with his sheep and that he had lost a single lamb. We were pretty far out, so I sent Nate a message on our Garmin and set up a plan for us to go stake out for the night. I went with one guy while Nate took the other band.

The rationale behind this is that sometimes, if a wolf pack is very intent on getting sheep but they are effectively deterred from one band, they will simply switch their attention to the next one. By covering both bands, we hoped to avoid this problem.

Nate and Lane, a short term volunteer, out to sleep with the sheep.

Fortunately, we had just borrowed an E-bike for the weekend from Chris Leman with the Blaine County Recreation District. Thanks Chris and BCRD! As an aside, we are hoping to buy E-Bikes for the project soon to let us access far off places much quicker! We will be posting about a fundraiser soon.

After checking several cameras, I rendezvoused with Nate. Food, sleeping bag, pad, along with our non-lethal deterrents went into the backpack. I also strapped Nate’s backpack to mine, as I lucked out and got the pedal assisted bike. Dropping off Nate’s stuff at the top of the ridge, I zoomed another ten miles, chasing the sunlight as I did. I arrived to the sheep with enough light to set up my sleeping set up and to put the Fox Lights a good distance from the sheep.

We like to put the Fox Lights in a perimeter surrounding the sheep, but not too close so as not to disturb them. Sometimes if they are too close, the sheep and dogs get nervous and the barking and baa-ing starts. In addition to keeping them the right distance from the band, it’s also important to think of the location. Placing them on the side of a hill rather than the top maximizes the area that will reflect the light. If the sheep are near dense forest, this is also a good place. Putting them in passes where wolves would travel, and in the direction that wolves have been detected, are also important aspects.

Drifting in and out of sleep, I waited for the livestock guardian dogs to start barking. Suddenly, they erupted in a chorus, trying to match the howling that had started up from the other side of a nearby hill. Three howls pierced the air. Slowly but surely, two more joined in from across the valley, echoing the sentiments of their closer brethren.

Nothing awakens you quite like a wolf pack howling. Like electricity coursing through your veins, it jumpstarts your heart and peels your eyes open in excitement. While I wanted to keep listening to the howling as long as I could, I pulled out my blank pistol (this is a BLANK pistol that cannot fire live rounds and only makes noise) and fired it into the air twice. I waited a few minutes. The wolves waited with me, but their patience wore thin and they began howling again. I fired it off two more times, and they went quiet. I waited until dawn, thinking they might come back, but fortunately they stayed away, scared off by the sound of fake gunshots.

The Livestock Guardian Dogs played hide and seek with Nate’s sleeping pad. They won.

The following morning, I placed a camera on the sheep carcass in order for me to see what was returning. A week later, Nate picked up the SD card. Going through it, we found fox, coyote, and then, wolves! Unfortunately, they had been eating at the bones and visiting the site, as they often do. While they do certainly hunt, they are also major scavengers, getting what food they can where and when they are able to.

Although all was quiet where I was for the next few nights, Nate had a different experience. First, a bear walked through the sheep band in the middle of the night. Then, on his last night out, three wolves began howling very close by at about the same time I had heard them the first night. After firing his air horn a few times, they left the sheep band alone.

After several nights camped out with the sheep, the rain finally came. While it certainly wasn’t a drought breaker, it was a nice break from the smoke and heat. After seeing the effectiveness of the Fox Lights, the sheep producer we were working with tentatively agreed to keep using them. Being able to keep wolves away for a week was a huge success, and we are hopeful that by using the Fox Lights and noise makers, the herders will be able to discourage the wolves from getting too close.

This isn’t easy work. Most of it involves building trust between us and our partners. Yes, we have data showing that our non-lethal deterrents work, but that doesn’t always convince people to use them. Sometimes long phone calls, tough conversations, and consistent demonstration are necessary to move people towards coexistence. By coming together and listening to what works for all parties, we are able to move forward and make some progress. Without this work, the likelihood of wolves being killed due to depredations is high. They live in a precarious balance out here, and we are doing all we can to keep them out of harm’s way.