Wolves kill cow in Fishtail area, MT

• Billings Gazette staff
• Jan 29, 2016

 AP photo

BILLINGS - The Rosebud wolf pack, which roams the Beartooth Front between Fiddler and Red Lodge creeks, has been implicated in the killing of a yearling heifer on a Fishtail-area ranch.
The kill was confirmed by Wildlife Services on Monday. Agency officials have set leg-hold traps to capture any wolves that return to the kill site, said John Steuber, state director of Wildlife Services.
The pack is comprised of a female alpha, a yearling and four pups, said Abby Nelson, the Region 3 wolf management specialist for Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Last May the pack was identified as the probable cause of one cow killing and the injury of another on a ranch south of Roscoe. A cattle death northwest of Absarokee in July could not be tied to any pack, but was identified as a probable wolf kill. No wolves were killed by Wildlife Services after the incidents, but Nelson said two wolves from the pack were shot by hunters this fall.
Despite the incidents, Steuber said the number of livestock losses to wolves was down across the state last year for the second year in a row.
The Rosebud pack lives farther east than other wolf packs in the state. Their closest rival is to the west, the Baker Mountain pack, which roams the upper Boulder River drainage.


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