Wolves are like a terrorist attack

By Lisa Schmidt

Kathy Konen looks down at her hands when someone asks her how she feels about wolves. When she raises her head, her steely eyes reveal her determination. Despite the heartache and more than $200,000 that Montana wolves have cost the Rebish-Konen Ranch, Kathy is not planning to quit.

Kathy and her husband John raise cattle and Rambouillet sheep near Dillon in southwest Montana. They found their first wolf-killed sheep in 2000. Last summer, wolves killed 25 rams in July and then came back for ovine dessert of 135 rams in August. Twelve more rams had been mangled, but were still alive. John loaded them up and brought them 25 miles back to the ranch headquarters and a veterinarian, doing his best to save them. Two of those died that night. "We had checked on those rams the day before. All of them were killed sometime in 23 hours," John Konen said. "We managed wolves and managed wolves. Now it is time to control them." Read More ...

Reprinted from The Western Ag Report, January 7, 2010.