This past week Nate and I got to know two of the herders that have been working for Flat Top Sheep Company for many years now. As part of filming with a small documentary crew, we hiked up into the Pioneers to find Abodón Ortega Yaure way up on a high ridge. Talking with Abodón, he recounted how the equipment that we provided him had helped him keep wolves, and coyotes, away at various points. He has been working for Flat Top Sheep Company for about 20 years, nearly paralleling the reintroduction of wolves.
Abodón points out where his sheep will be sleeping for the night.
Abodón has a great deal of respect for wolves, noting that the tools we provide through the project really do work for him. He also follows the Wood River Wolf Project on Facebook and keeps up with all of our videos and updates. Furthermore, as we talked with him, swapping stories about seeing bears and wolves throughout the region, he brought up the Little Wood River drainage. Having just travelled through there, I was beyond excited to hear he knew it so well.
As it got darker, Nate and I heard a dog barking far off. Nate went to investigate. He came back and said there was indeed a dog far off from the sheep band that we had been watching for a while. Abodón followed Nate up the hill, and lo and behold we saw a part of the band had split off. Abodón got out the air horn we had given him, and began using it. Even at nearly half a mile, the sound got the roaming sheep moving back towards the bigger herd. Good to know the tools work for a few purposes!
Abodón frequently uses Fox Lights around his sheep at night to deter wolves from coming near.
On a different occasion, I went up to check in with Roberto Colonio and let him know we had wolves sighted in his area. As Roberto was in Peru last season unable to return due to Covid, this is my first year working with him. He also works with Flat Top Sheep Company. We began talking, and he asked me if a trap he had seen was a wolf trap. I told him wolf traps are banned in Idaho Game Management Units 48 and 49, so it probably wasn’t. As he showed me where it was, we talked about wolves and his history with the project. Roberto has a deep respect for wolves, telling me “They are so similar to people. They have their own families and care for one another.” Hearing Roberto say this struck a chord with me, as I am always trying to relay this to people that I talk to when they ask me “Why wolves?”
There are a million reasons why wolves belong on the landscape. They are native to these lands and contribute to their health, by keeping ungulates out of riparian areas and allowing beaver access to more willows. These cascading effects are far-reaching and important for water retention, biodiversity, and a plethora of other reasons. However, on top of this, wolves mirror us in many ways. They have families with complex relationships. They play, fight, and support each other in a manner that parallels to a large degree how we as humans do. It was beautiful to hear Roberto say this unprompted, as it gave me some hope about the future of coexistence. If Idaho sheep herders, who live day in day out in wolf territory, are able to respect wolves, I think it’s possible to get everyone else on board.
As always, it’s important to remember that the shepherds, like Roberto and Abodón, are the major reason wolf-sheep coexistence is possible in our area. Without their buy-in and willingness to try new tools and techniques, it would never happen!