Raising her handheld radio telemetry receiver above her head just before nightfall on Monday, Cindi Hillemeyer scanned the surrounding hills of the Smoky Mountains for a sign of the elusive Phantom Hill wolf pack.
The objective of the 35-year-old's search was the steady ping, ping, ping that would signify the presence of one of the recently discovered pack's two radio collared animals. The individual frequency emitted by each radio collar not only indicates a wolf's position, but also its direction of travel.
Despite being a practiced hand at radio telemetry, Hillemeyer didn't have much luck picking up the trail of the two wolves. The silence emanating from her receiver suggested the pack was likely roaming too far away from her position in the Douglas fir and aspen-covered hills of lower Baker Creek. Biologists with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game confirmed the existence of the pack, its den site and the presence of three wolf pups in June.
Behind Hillemeyer, upwards of 500 sheep grazed contentedly as the 11-year resident of the valley continued to scan the mix of meadow and forest.
"Hey sheep," she called to the band in a friendly tone.
Despite the lack of success, Hillemeyer said the wolf pack was likely still somewhere nearby, perhaps behind one of the ridges to the south. On her drive north from Ketchum to Baker Creek less than an hour earlier, Hillemeyer had picked the telltale pings from both radio-collared wolves—the pack's alpha male and its sub-adult female—from a roadside pullout along state Highway 75. Based on repeated tracking of the wolf pack this summer, Hillemeyer and Fish and Game biologists have confirmed the pack's home range is centered on both sides of the upper Wood River Valley in the Smoky and Boulder mountains.
A volunteer with Fish and Game, Hillemeyer has spent much of her summer tracking the movements of the wolf pack in an attempt to keep them away from grazing sheep. Along with her Fish and Game-issued radio telemetry receiver, she also carries a single-barrel shotgun along with non-lethal rubber bullets to scare wolves that may venture too close to sheep.
Hillemeyer's solitary task is a tall order, especially given the six-member wolf pack's expansive home range roughly coincides with several federal sheep grazing allotments in the upper Wood River Valley.
While at least one local sheep producer—Hailey-based Lava Lake Land and Livestock—elected to remove sheep from its grazing allotments earlier this summer after the pack was discovered, other grazers have chosen not to. One of those sheep ranchers—John Faulkner, of Gooding-based Faulkner Land and Livestock Co.—began to lose some of his sheep to wolf depredations on July 10 and 12. The sheep-killing incidents didn't end there.
Both Hillemeyer and Fish and Game's large carnivore manager, Steve Nadeau, confirmed Monday that the wolf pack has continued to stay in close proximity to Faulkner's bands and have been involved in repeated sheep killings. Such incidents are the reason Hillemeyer has spent numerous days and nights alone in the field monitoring the movements of the Phantom Hill wolves.
The killings are also why Nadeau is giving serious consideration to the pack's continued existence. The option to kill off the pack was never out of the realm of possibility, he said Monday.
"It's always been in the cards," he said.
During an interview by telephone, Nadeau said a determination about whether agents with the U.S Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services would be called on to kill off the pack could happen soon. He said the decision—which is largely his to make—would be based in part on a detailed tally of Faulkner's sheep that was to take place Monday evening in the Baker Creek area.
During Monday's sheep count, lambs from the band were loaded onto out-of-state-bound trucks, while the adult ewes remained on-site and were joined by additional sheep.
Sheepherders looking after Faulkner's sheep have reported continued losses throughout the past few weeks, Nadeau said.
"They continue to pluck away sheep," he said.
In all, a total of 17 sheep depredations—three or four of which were black bear-related—were confirmed by Faulkner's livestock manager on Monday, Hillemeyer said. An additional 29 sheep also came up missing, but the cause of those losses isn't known, she said.
While Hillemeyer isn't entirely opposed to removing wolves involved in livestock depredations— "it's obvious in some situations that it has to happen"—she does think more can be done to avoid such actions. As the only volunteer in the valley working to keep wolves and sheep separate, Hillemeyer said communication between state and federal agencies on how to better prevent sheep depredations by wolves could be greatly improved.
Hillemeyer said her work has been repeatedly stymied by the lack of information she's received concerning where the sheep bands are grazing at particular times. Because of this, she's had to work even harder to locate the sheep grazing on Sawtooth National Forest land.
What's really needed, Hillemeyer said, is a stronger focus on instituting non-lethal methods to keep sheep and wolves separate. These can include putting sheep in protective electric-wire enclosures at night and placing more guard dogs with sheep bands—measures some sheep grazers have instituted with success, she said.
"I feel like that could shape a future for coexistence," Hillemeyer said.
In response to a comment Nadeau made on Monday concerning the temporary nature of such non-lethal measures, she said the same can be said for killing off wolf packs without first trying to encourage them to stay away from sheep. Just as generations of wolves can learn bad habits like preying on sheep, so too can they learn to avoid sheep, she said.
"If the efforts aren't made how can you justify it (killing wolves)?" she asked.
Spending nights in the mountains alone is the least she can do, Hillemeyer said. She said she's never been able to sit back and let others do what needs to be done.
"It's a really easy solution to a conflict," she said. "I enjoy the challenge of it."
If given the opportunity, many people would want to volunteer their time as she has, she also suggested. "I would like to see more effort put forth. More could be done."
By late afternoon Tuesday, information about whether the Phantom Hill pack was definitely marked for extermination was unavailable. Check the Idaho Mountain Express Web site at www.mtexpress.com for continued coverage of this ongoing issue.
Wood River Valley resident Cindi Hillemeyer scans the surrounding Smoky Mountains with a handheld radio telemetry receiver in attempt to locate the Phantom Hill wolf pack?s two radio collared wolves Monday evening. This summer, Hillemeyer has been working as a volunteer with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game tracking the movements of the pack in an attempt to keep them away from bands of sheep that are grazing federal grazing allotments. Photo by Jason Kauffman
