ECOLOGY : Baa Baa ‘Green’ Sheep? Coyote Friendly Wool : Some sheep ranchers are counting profits as they certify they don’t kill predators. Others grumble that eco-marketing is a ‘con job.’
In many ways, Becky Weed and Dave Tyler’s ranch is like their neighbors’. It has a sheep dog, a big barn and a pickup truck loaded with hay for early morning feeding.
But Weed and Tyler are anomalies in the tight world of sheep ranching. For the past year, they have not killed any predators on their land, bordered to the north by the snowy Bridger Mountains.
“We have coyotes on the place,” Weed said. “But we manage our flock carefully. Our ranch is small enough that we can walk the perimeters, leave lights on and bang screen doors. In the long run, we believe not killing predators is a more effective way to deal with the ecosystem.”
Weed and Tyler also know they can sell their wool to a premium buyer, one who will pay as much as $2 a pound for a product that normally brings between $1 and $1.30.
“It’s a pretty radical idea,” said Dude Tyler, a sheep rancher in Big Timber, Mont., and director of Predator Friendly Inc. His organization purchases wool from a handful of certified ranchers and sells it to manufacturers.
“Raising sheep and killing coyotes and mountain lions have gone hand-in-hand for a century,” he said. “But we believe there’s a market out there for people who want to buy wool from ranchers who protect predators and that they’re willing to pay more.”
Cindy Owings, a Bozeman-based clothing manufacturer, agrees. Last year she bought 1,500 pounds of “predator friendly” wool for her current line of coats, hats, mittens, vests and handbags, which will begin arriving in boutiques throughout the West this summer. “We’ve had tremendously positive response,” said Owings, who has committed to buying twice as much wool this year.
“Green” marketing is nothing new.
As ranching and agriculture in the West have fallen under economic and political strains in recent years, more growers have added value to their products by finding niches and new markets. Such products as hormone-free beef and organic lentils can fetch higher prices than their conventional counterparts.
But while eco-marketing may be on the rise in the cattle and grain industries, tradition-bound sheep producers have been slower to jump on board. For its part, Predator Friendly has met with great skepticism--and even hostility--from some Montana ranchers.
“I think it’s phony,” said Gwen Petersen, a rancher, cowboy poet and columnist for Montana Woolgrowers magazine. “It’s a con job. They’re exploiting people’s emotions, making them pay more for being nice to predators. Believe me, there’s nothing nice about watching coyotes rip the entrails out of your lambs.”
In Montana last year, coyotes, bears and mountain lions caused $1.8 million in losses to sheep and lambs, according to the state Agricultural Statistics Service.
The Wyoming Legislature recently passed a bill awarding a $1,000 bounty to anyone who shoots a wolf. The Farm Bureau and other livestock industry groups vehemently oppose the effort by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to reintroduce wolves to Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.
“We’ve been really hard hit by predators,” said Janice Grauberger, a spokeswoman for the Denver-based American Sheep Industry Assn. “Predator-friendly is a warm and fuzzy, Pollyanna-sounding idea, but it’s not practical. We have to kill predators, and there’s resentment in the industry because Predator Friendly portrays the rest of ranchers as bad boys.”
Dude Tyler, a second-generation rancher, said that was never his intention. “I think this idea is just a little too nuts-and-berries for most of my friends and even my family,” he said. “. . . But we don’t want to be righteous about it. This is a business venture. I like trying new things.”
The ostracism of Predator Friendly ranchers has been so great that one participates anonymously.
Despite the heat, Weed maintains it is possible to raise sheep without killing predators and to make a bigger profit doing so.
In fact, she said, Predator Friendly can help the industry by making it more efficient and responsive to consumers, and less dependent on subsidized federal programs.
The industry could use the boost. Last year, the federal government announced it would withdraw a 50-year-old cash incentives program for woolgrowers. Wool prices have reached an all-time low because of a glut from Australia and New Zealand, countries with no livestock predators.
“Traditional, lethal predator control is expensive and ineffective,” said Weed, who advocates such deterrents as guard animals--including dogs, llamas and burros--and electric fences and lights. Her 160-acre ranch boasted no losses to predators last year.
Some industry insiders acknowledge that traditional practices could stand improvement. Last year, Animal Damage Control, the federal agency responsible for controlling predators, spent $36 million to protect livestock nationwide. Even so, coyote numbers have increased, and ranchers continue to suffer stock losses, said Wyoming Wool Growers President Bryce Reece.
