MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Colorado ranchers are generally not happy about the return of wolves to the state. The predators are back after an 80-year hiatus. Voters approved a ballot measure a couple of years ago to reintroduce them. Now the state is hiring what are called range riders to protect livestock. Aspen Public Radio's Halle Zander has this report.
(SOUNDBITE OF VEHICLE ENGINE RUMBLING)
HALLE ZANDER, BYLINE: On his ATV this fall, Mike Tornes (ph) is bouncing up a dirt road in western Colorado, where he grazes between 120 and 140 cattle on about 7,000 acres. It's kind of a risky business.
MIKE TORNES: It takes a certain kind of dumb, I guess, to be able to throw several hundred thousand dollars out in the woods and say, come on home when you want to.
ZANDER: So far, authorities have confirmed 66 livestock have been killed or injured by wolves in Colorado in the last two years. A big challenge in preventing livestock losses is knowing where the wolves are. In this treacherous terrain, thick with sage and oak brush, Tornes says it's hard to see much.
TORNES: We just ran a 1,200-pound cow up there. Can you see her?
ZANDER: No.
TORNES: (Laughter).
ZANDER: But wildlife officials have a strategy. Last summer, they hired their first batch of range riders. They patrol ranchlands to keep an eye on livestock and an eye out for wolves.
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ZANDER: Jesse Lasater's one of those riders. Out at a state park this fall, he demonstrated one of his tools - thermal binoculars. He points them at a group of eight deer. At dusk, they're difficult to see. But through the goggles, they're burning white, staring back at him.
JESSE LASATER: If we were out in the middle of the night, pitch black, what you see now is what we'd see at night.
ZANDER: These goggles are just one tool range riders use to track wolves and keep an eye on livestock. They're sent out to ride around with cattle on horses or ATVs, even on foot, in places where there've been issues with wolves. They set up game cameras and electric fencing and search for wolf tracks and scat. They even use pepper ball launchers - they're kind of like paintball guns filled with capsaicin, the active ingredient in pepper spray - to scare predators away from cows and sheep. These tools aren't perfect, Lasater says, but...
LASATER: At least showing up to the table and saying, hey, we're here for you as livestock producers. What can we do to help? It's really been a method in lowering the temperature.
ZANDER: In its first year, Colorado has spent around $380,000 on wages for its 13 range riders. It's still too early to say exactly how effective they are at preventing wolf attacks on livestock. Ray Aberle, who helps oversee range riders at Colorado Parks and Wildlife, is confident that just having them out there is helping.
RAY ABERLE: Even if the landscape isn't overly accessible, you're hearing the livestock vocalizations or the wolf vocalizations, or you have information from the producer where the livestock generally are that time of year - information from us, potentially, about the location of the wolves.
ZANDER: Rancher Mike Tornes has his doubts, given the small number of riders and the millions of acres of grazing land in Colorado. But he appreciates that the state is at least trying to do something. Eventually, he believes people could figure out how to keep wolves from eating livestock.
TORNES: I believe that that day may come if we all get on the same page. It's never going to work at the way we're doing it. It's just not. You know, the people aren't buying in. It was crammed down our throats.
ZANDER: Colorado Parks and Wildlife is hoping to double the number of range riders they hire next summer. They're also trying to introduce about a dozen more wolves this winter.
For NPR News, I'm Halle Zander in Aspen.
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