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Rancher takes different tack on wolf depredation

Mark Coats has been working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on creating a predator awareness program he believes can successfully reduce or eliminate predation deaths. Coats, who has cattle operations in Siskiyou County in far Northern California and Klamath and Jackson counties in Oregon, said the attacks happened on a neighbor’s land.“My cows turned out fine,” he said. “I’m confident in my cows’ ability to stand off predators,” explaining he routinely takes steps to retrain his herds.Coats doesn’t necessarily like it, but he accepts the fact that wolves have become a fixture in Oregon and parts of Northern California.“The wolf is a carnivore. Killing is what he does. By the laws of the ESA we can’t do a lot,” said Coats, referring to protections to wolves mandated under the federal Endangered Species Act. “We need to learn how to stay in business in his presence.” He has been working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on creating a predator awareness program he believes can successfully reduce or eliminate predation deaths.“What they need is the individualized chase,” where a wolf or wolves isolate a cow or calf from the herd, then chase, immobilize and eat the animal, which is often still alive. “We’re trying to interrupt that. That is the key.”The key, he believes, is training cattle to gather in herds when threatened by wolves or other potential killers.

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Capital Press
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