“That's a little too close for comfort,” said Bruno Friia of Lambros Real Estate, who manages the property.
Ranch foreman Bill Smith said the 10-year-old dog was killed around 8 a.m., after he'd let it and a companion 3-year-old dog out of the house. Both dogs belong to the ranch owner, who lives in a nearby apartment but was not home at the time.
“When I came back out, the old dog was standing there barking like she does every morning. She sees a deer move or something and she goes out there and woofs at it,” he said.
“I set her food down and never thought nothing about it. I figured Maggie would come hoofing it back. It's feeding time. She always did.”
This time she didn't. Bill and his wife Debbie spent the rest of the morning driving around the ranch looking for Maggie.
“Just as we drove up the driveway, I noticed something white way off in the grass right in the yard,” he said. “We went over there and there she was.”
The dog was “in pretty bad shape,” Smith said. “She was laying flat on the ground with her nose tucked back under her.”
It appeared she was reaching back, trying to ward off the attacker or attackers when she died.
Liz Bradley, wolf management specialist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, confirmed that wolves were responsible. She set leg traps behind the ranch to try to catch a wolf from the pack that wears a malfunctioning radio collar.
If successful, another collar will be put on and the wolf set free. Killing dogs is not a capital offense for the Ninemile wolves, who have roamed the valley since 1990. Bradley said there are an estimated four adults and at least two pups in the pack.
“We don't do any lethal control in these situations where wolves kill dogs,” she said. “We try to do what we can to help people to prevent it happening again. But also, this is an area where wolves are protected as an endangered species.”
Montana is divided into two zones for wolf management purposes. Packs to the north are protected by the federal Endangered Species Act. Wolves in the southern zone, including those guilty of and put to death for recent cattle depredations in the Drummond and Philipsburg areas, are treated differently, Bradley said. There, people can shoot wolves that are attacking their livestock or, on private property, their pets.
The dividing line between the zones runs from Lolo Pass through Missoula, to Butte along Interstate 90, then north on I-15 to the Missouri River, which it follows out of the state.
Wolves are currently proposed for delisting. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to render its decision by next February. If that happens, Bradley said, “it makes that line go away and wolf management would be consistent across the state. Wolves will be treated just like mountain lions and black bears.”
Wolves in the Ninemile have been responsible for livestock and pet attacks previously. In an 18-month span in 2001 and 2002, for instance, wolves claimed 11 sheep, seven llamas and a horse in the valley.
Friia said this is the third dog killed by wolves on the same ranch, which is seven miles up West Ninemile Road. According to Bradley, the wolves killed a dog in the valley last May.
Smith hired on at the ranch this spring, and started seeing wolves soon after.
The first one he saw was white. It crossed an open pasture above the creek within view of the ranch house one spring evening. A black one then appeared. “He was kind of shy and went about halfway across the meadow. It looked to me like they were setting up for a kill,” Smith said.
One by one, others appeared - six in all, and all heading stealthily in the direction of where Smith and his son, visiting from Texas, were watching.
“Then a moose came galloping across the hayfield and went to the river and crossed the river,” Smith said.
The wolves disappeared into the trees.
“I don't know but what the moose was after them,” said Smith. “I think the pups were on the training trip.”
He saw wolves at various other times over the summer, and heard their howlings plenty of times.
The night before the dog slaying, Smith heard one howl from the hill above the house at 3:30 a.m.
“The reason that wolves kill dogs is not a food-driven thing, it's a territorial thing,” Bradley said. “Wolves are very territorial, just like dogs are about their yards. They see other canids as competitors in their territory. That's why they kill them. That's why they kill coyotes as well.”
In the Ninemile, the wolves follow the plentiful whitetail deer into the valley bottom, which is largely private property.
“Then you have people with lots of dogs as well,” Bradley said. “Wolves are traveling fairly close to people's houses because of the deer, and then the dogs are attractants as well.”
It's a good time to remind people wolves are most active in the early morning and evening hours, as well as at night, Bradley said.
“It's really a good idea to keep your dogs in at night if you think wolves are around. And especially the first thing in the morning, keep a close eye on them,” she said.
“All I know is they're getting closer to the facilities where people are,” said Friia. “This was out on the lawn. There's plenty of area all around the ranch up the Ninemile where they can go.
“They're coming in and I'm a little concerned that, is the next step a person?”
Not likely, said Bradley.
“It's very, very rare for wolves to attack people,” she said. “We've had no documentation of that in Montana, Idaho or Wyoming since the wolves have been here. Now in places like Canada and Alaska, there have been some cases of wolf attacks but they're usually related to habituation, where people have been feeding wolves in campgrounds and they got habituated to people.”
Reporter Kim Briggeman can be reached at 523-5266 or at kbriggeman@missoulian.com
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