Ranchers not just crying wolf

Dick Thoman, a fourth-generation sheep rancher in Wyoming, woke up one morning and found 42 of his sheep bloody and dead on the open range. They had been slaughtered by wolves.

The wolves didn't kill only what they needed to survive, and they didn't kill because they were hungry, as some like to claim. They killed for sport; they killed because that's what wolves do.

Not one of the sheep had been eaten.

"Just killed 'em and left 'em," says Thoman.

If Thoman and other ranchers wrote this column, they would tell you their story, and it wouldn't be the politically correct version. They would pretty much write it this way:

The Tree-Huggers and Granolas, the politicos in their Washington offices — they don't get it. It's not as if ranchers don't have enough trouble surviving these days, what with the bad economy and government regulations and foreign tariffs and land restrictions and foreign imports. So what does the government do? Twenty years ago the feds captured wolves in Canada and turned them loose in Yellowstone National Park. And not just any wolves, but über wolves.

Memo from ranchers: Thanks a heap.

Not that the wolves cared about park boundaries. Thoman's summer range borders Yellowstone. He loses 300 to 400 sheep a year to wolves, or about 10 percent of his herd. Why would they chase wild game in the park for hours on end when they can find them all bunched up and defenseless on adjacent ranches? It's like a grocery store on hooves.

Did anybody not see that coming?

"They've slaughtered us since they brought them back," Thoman says. "It's terrible."

This doesn't even take into account Thoman's other losses. With wolves around, sheep are nervous. Imagine having a terrorist loose in the neighborhood each night, trying to get into your house to kill you. The sheep don't sleep or eat as well.

"We probably lost 15 pounds per lamb over the summer, and at a dollar a pound and over 3,000 lambs, that adds up," says Thoman.

What in tarnation were the pinheads in Washington thinking? Did they ever read "Peter and the Wolf," "Three Little Pigs," "Little Red Riding Hood," "White Fang," "Call of the Wild"? Do they know what wolves are? They're sharks, on land. And ranchers can't touch them. Wolves are on the endangered species list. A rancher risks his range permits and his livelihood and a felony if he shoots one.