WHEN CITY FOLK RUN ROUGHSHOD OVER THE RURAL COMMUNITIES: Dead cattle and high blood pressure: Wolf depredation takes toll on Colorado ranchers.
So far, Farrell said he has lost three yearlings and three calves. He’s seen the pair of wolves on several occasions, as have others. Thermal night-vision photos and videos and trail cameras have also documented their movements.
“They couldn’t compensate us enough to put us through what they’re putting us through right now,” Farrell said. “Compensation doesn’t mean a thing. When you see the stress on your family, the stress on your marriage, the stress on the cattle — these cattle are so messed up.”
Farrell said that before the wolves showed up, his cattle were calm enough that they could be rounded-up and moved by one man on a horse and a few stock dogs.
“We take pride in our dogs and what we do every day. We go out there with our dogs moving these cattle and we have really good dogs,” Farrell said. “So, with these dogs, usually one guy can go out there with two dogs and move 300 or 400 head of cattle, yearlings, or cows, and do it by yourself.”
“Now, these yearlings, these cows are so stressed out, you can’t even hardly take a dog into the field with them because they all just go different ways,” Farrell added. “They start running after they’ve been chased by the wolves. And now we can’t even hardly use them.”
Everything is going swimmingly, to coin an Instaphrase.