Wyoming Ranch Becomes a Wolf Testing Ground

DUBOIS, Wyo. —  In some ways, Jon Robinett has more in common with his ancestors than with modern-day ranchers: He has wolves at the door.

Robinett manages a ranch at the end of a winding road south of Yellowstone National Park, where wolves have established territory since their 1995 federal reintroduction to the park.

Since that time, Robinett has lost seven family dogs, about 200 cattle and a colt that was attacked inside a corral near the ranchhouse.

He believes wolves are responsible for many of the killings. But proving it is difficult because of scavenging wildlife and the elusive nature of wolves.

One of the most annoying problems is the change in lifestyle, he said. Despite the vast beautiful vistas that invite people outdoors on the ranch, his grandchildren are not allowed outside to play on the lawn without adult supervision.

Unschooled in wolf safety themselves, Robinett and his wife, Debbie, were scolded by a visiting wolf expert for letting a pack of seven or eight wolves follow them as they rode their horses.

“It has totally changed our lifestyle and our lives. We can’t go to bed and forget about it,” Robinett said.

The wolves aren’t shy. The Robinetts were watching “The Tonight Show” one night when a black wolf came halfway through the front door and backed two family dogs into a corner of the foyer. Robinett chased it off with a shotgun.

Other dogs were not so lucky. Robbie, a beloved herding dog, was gutted about 200 yards from the house. Another dog, Booger, a Great Pyrenees, is covered in scars from an attack near the barn. The dog had two ribs broken and required antibiotics-spiked raw ground beef to be pushed through his mouth while it was too painful for him to move.

“It’s very personal to me,” Debbie Robinett said of wolves. “I want them eliminated.”

If the Diamond G Ranch is a test of whether ranchers and wolves can coexist, the Robinetts say the federal government has failed to make the test fair. The owner of the ranch, Stephen Gordon, is suing the Interior Department on grounds that it should be doing more to keep wolves away.

“It’s the most chronic problem I’ve ever seen,” said Ed Bangs, leader of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s wolf recovery. The agency is a defendant in the lawsuit.

A ruling on Gordon’s lawsuit has been pending from U.S. District Judge William Downes in Casper for more than two years. Downes declined to comment on the case.

Meanwhile, the ranchers and Fish and Wildlife Service continue to work on how the ranch and the wolves can coexist.

If any rancher is suited for coexistence with wolves, it would be Robinett, 49, whose ability to run the ranch amid grizzly bears and migrating elk has won him accolades.

“Jon seems to be better to work with than most [ranchers] because of his respect for wildlife and appreciation for the place he lives and wanting to keep it that way,” said David Gaillard of the Predator Conservation Alliance in Bozeman, Mont.

Over the years Robinett has become adept at tracking where grizzly bears roam in the 70,000 acres of private and public land that he ranches. Last year he was able to claim no kills to grizzly bears because he simply moved his cattle to avoid them.

Robinett knows predator losses are a cost of doing business. The ranch has plenty of opportunity for predation, with its meandering creek and abundant vegetation in the lush Dunoir Valley. It attracts elk, deer, grizzly bears, eagles and countless other wildlife.

About six years ago, signs of wolves began to appear. Shortly thereafter, more cattle began dying, he said.

Robinett hired extra cowboys to tally the carcasses. He spent dozens of nights in his truck on the prairie, shining headlights on wolves that got too close to the herd.

Federal officials shot and killed three wolves, but the attacks continued. In a first for the Fish and Wildlife Service in the Rocky Mountain region, the agency gave Robinett permission to shoot two wolves. Robinett said he let the permit expire because at the time, he didn’t need it.

“Since I was a kid I never liked to kill things and I never liked it when people killed something for no good reason,” he said.

Although the wolves are treated as fully protected endangered species inside the park, once they move outside they can be legally killed by ranchers who catch them chasing or attacking livestock. But catching them in the act is difficult.

“We want the ability to shoot a wolf in the front yard without being a criminal,” Robinett said. “It’s never going to be like what it was 200 years ago.”

Defenders of Wildlife has given money to the Diamond G Ranch as compensation for the wolf kills. No government agency compensates ranchers for livestock killed by wolves.

The Fish and Wildlife Service offered Robinett a series of nonlethal options, such as bean-bag bullets and taped recordings of helicopters to scare the wolves into thinking that aerial shootings are imminent. So far, little has worked, Robinett said.

Every two hours, often extending into night, he picks up a tracking device supplied by the Fish and Wildlife Service to check on the vicinity of a radio-collared wolf. The animal’s presence is noted in a static series of beeps that fade and return.

To reduce wolf problems, Robinett and Gordon reduced the herd to 400 head from 700 and substituted beef cattle for higher-priced “seed stock” that are used for breeding.

They also gave up their grazing allotment in the Bridger-Teton National Forest so the cattle would be closer to the ranch, and they move the herd to Riverton during the vulnerable calving season.

Despite the Diamond G problems, the wolf recovery program is seen largely as a success. An estimated 166 wolves live in and around Yellowstone.

A Fish and Wildlife Service proposal would reclassify wolves from “endangered” to “threatened,” reducing protection for the animal in much of the West once there are 30 breeding pairs in the Northern Rockies. There are now believed to be 26 pairs.

Bangs said the Fish and Wildlife Service is doing everything it can for the Diamond G Ranch.

“If that means killing off the entire pack, which we almost did once, we’ll do it,” he said.

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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: https://www.fws.gov/