{"id":41505,"date":"2022-03-23T16:32:55","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T22:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-latest-line-of-defense-against-wolves-on-this-colorado-ranch-guard-donkeys\/"},"modified":"2022-03-23T22:32:55","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T22:32:55","slug":"the-latest-line-of-defense-against-wolves-on-this-colorado-ranch-guard-donkeys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-latest-line-of-defense-against-wolves-on-this-colorado-ranch-guard-donkeys\/","title":{"rendered":"The latest line of defense against wolves on this Colorado ranch? Guard donkeys"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Three
Three guard donkeys at the Gittleson Angus and Gittleson Family Cattle Co. in Jackson County, outside of Walden, on March 18. (Sam Brasch\/CPR News)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A Colorado rancher has brought in reinforcements to help him protect his livestock from wolves.<\/p>\n

Don Gittleson now has seven donkeys at his mountain ranch near Walden, close to the Wyoming border. On a recent morning, three of the donkeys watched with intense focus as Gittleson entered a cattle pen, their ears snapping forward to track the sound of his steps.<\/p>\n

Gittleson hopes the animals will make his herd a tougher target for local wolves, which have killed three of his cattle since last December. If everything goes according to plan, the next wolf that tries to get close to a cow will meet a hurricane of hoofs and donkey teeth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we want to create in the minds of the wolves is a possibility that if you come into the cows, you could be killed or you could be injured,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gittleson knows both ranchers and wildlife advocates are carefully watching his experiment with donkey defenders. It comes as Colorado wildlife officials finalize plans to turn the state into a safe haven for the endangered predators, both by actively releasing gray wolves and protecting others arriving on their own. Any tool to limit livestock losses could help ranchers decide whether the canines are a tolerable nuisance or an existential threat.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Gittleson Angus and Gittleson Family Cattle Co. in Jackson County, outside of Walden on March 18. (Sam Brasch\/CPR News)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Wolves have posed a threat to livestock since they returned to the region<\/div>\n

Recent events in Colorado\u2019s rugged North Park region haven\u2019t provided livestock producers much reason for comfort. Last year, a pair of wolves wandered into the region without human help and settled into a den site. A set of pups later emerged, marking the first evidence of gray wolves breeding in the state since hunters and trappers eradicated the species in the 1940s.<\/p>\n

The wolves have since proven adept at hunting wildlife, domestic animals and livestock on other ranches. The pack likely killed another cow and a dog at neighboring properties, according to state wildlife officials.<\/p>\n

Gittleson\u2019s preferred response would be to shoot the predators, but that\u2019s illegal under federal and state laws. He\u2019s opted for nonlethal deterrents instead, like electric fences and late-night watches to scare off any wolves entering the property. He credits those efforts for the lack of attacks over the last month but doesn\u2019t expect the good fortune to last.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of those things wolves are going to get used to, so it\u2019s going to have a shelf life,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re not going to be afraid of it forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Don
Don and Kim Gittleson on their ranch in Jackson County, outside of Walden on March 18. (Sam Brasch\/CPR News)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Instead of guard dogs, guard donkeys<\/div>\n

Gittleson knew guard animals could add another layer of protection for his cattle. Hulking dogs were one option, but he decided against them after learning about the high price of their food. Through conversations with state and federal wildlife officials, Gittleson discovered guard donkeys could be a better choice. A glut of feral burros is already foraging food on federally managed public lands and facing down predators along the way.<\/p>\n

His first attempts to obtain donkeys from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management ran into bureaucratic hurdles. That\u2019s when he mentioned his ambitions to Zach Weaver, a local officer with Colorado Parks and Wildlife.<\/p>\n

Weaver soon identified six wild burros from the Nevada high country available for adoption. He picked up the animals from a facility in Utah and delivered them to the family ranch in late February.<\/p>\n

Videos released by state wildlife officials show the moment the burros arrive at the property. The set of six clomped off a trailer and started feeding on some hay laid out across the dirt. Others stood in complete stillness.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Gittleson Angus and Gittleson Family Cattle Co. in Jackson County, outside of Walden on March 18. (Sam Brasch\/CPR News)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Not much about the donkeys\u2019 behavior has changed, according to Don Gittleson\u2019s grandson, 13-year-old Eisten Gittleson. He talked up the guard animals to his school friends before spring break, which he spent helping at the ranch. Eisten told his schoolmates his family had received some \u201ccool donkeys that are about to go ham on these wolves.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Eisten pulled twine off of hay bale, he admitted the donkeys seemed a little too calm to be effective wolf deterrents. Even a dog entering the pen hadn\u2019t roused the burros, he said.<\/p>\n

Other wolf-country cattlemen say donkeys\u2019 tranquil demeanor can be deceiving. Chuck Becker, a northern Minnesota rancher, has used donkeys on his property to chase off timberwolves for about two decades. He has never seen one get to a wolf but once witnessed the aftermath of a coyote attempting to get past one of the guard animals.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe beats it about half to death, and then he just stands back about 100 feet and watches it, like waiting for it to try to get away,\u201d Becker said. \u201cIt was like a cat with a mouse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
The Gittleson Angus and Gittleson Family Cattle Co. in Jackson County, outside of Walden on March 18. (Sam Brasch\/CPR News)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Raising the next generation of guard donkeys<\/div>\n

Becker said he lost livestock to wolves every year before he brought donkeys to the ranch. Now he only loses an animal every four to five years.<\/p>\n

While the guard animals have proved effective, Becker warns not every donkey is equally inclined to trample fear into wolves. He said they\u2019re most defensive when raised with cattle and learn to protect them as part of their own herd.<\/p>\n

That prospect is why Gittleson bought a fertile male to breed with the wild burros. Eventually, he hopes to rear young donkeys alongside calves, but he doubts they\u2019ll ever be 100% effective. He expects to lose more cattle to wolves during the upcoming spring calving season and even more when he releases his cattle to graze the thousands of acres of public land he leases from the federal government every summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere isn\u2019t going to be a perfect solution, so hopefully, people don\u2019t get too disappointed with their expectations of how this is going to work out,\u201d Gittleson said.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit cpr.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Don
Don Gittleson stands on his ranch in Jackson County, outside of Walden on March 18. (Sam Brasch\/CPR News)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cattlemen say the burros\u2019 tranquil demeanor can be deceiving<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,1587,28,1398,1263,603],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-41505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-farms","tag-headlines","tag-livestock-farming","tag-ranching","tag-wildlife"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41505"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=41505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}