Predators and Prey

Searching for a potential killer

Story by Andrew Dusek

The darkness of the night makes it almost impossible to see, but I know it’s there. Just beyond the edge of the field, waiting for the spotlight to pass, so it can move from the shadows into the waning light of the moon. The air is still and its movements are imperceptible, but I can hear the nocturnal cries of its accomplices in the distance. The wails pierce the night just like the spotlight’s beam. They are high-pitched and distressed, sometimes long like a wolf’s howl, at other times short and staccato like the yip of a wounded dog. But there are no dogs for miles. This was a predator and it knew I was in pursuit.

I had reached the town of Hamilton, in the Bitterroot Mountains about 40 miles southwest of Missoula, in the early evening. I was on my way to a ranch owned by Dennis Moore to spotlight predators that plague his livestock. The previous Thursday, some unknown creature had scared the horses on the ranch and driven them into a fence, causing injury. One of the horses was left nearly lame, but there were no visible signs of attack. Something big and elusive was frightening these animals. The ranch hand determined it was an “unknown predator,” and I was there to ride along on a search to figure out what it was.

In Montana, livestock is routinely targeted by nocturnal predators that hunt for food. Bears, mountain lions, bobcats, wolves and coyotes are all common causes of more than $1 million losses experienced by Montana ranchers each year. Though cattle losses are not reported annually, unlike counts of sheep, the numbers are on the rise as predators move down from surrounding mountains in search of food.

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (MTFWP) targets big game species like black bears and mountain lions through wildlife damage management activities. But the smaller predators do the most damage.

Coyotes may only weigh 35 to 50 pounds, but their jaws can exert more than 300 pounds of pressure with each bite. That’s enough to kill a calf or seriously maim a cow. They also cause damage by chasing animals into fences where they often become trapped and later die of strangulation. In 2005, the most recent year for recorded predator-related cattle losses, coyotes killed 1,300 calves in Montana.

A coyote carcass tied to a fence on the Moore ranch serves as a warning for other potential predators. (Photo illustration by Andrew Dusek and Allison Maier)

Damage is not only measured in livestock deaths. Stress to livestock caused by coyotes also results in veterinarian bills, lower breeding rates and weight gain. As a result, many ranchers take matters into their own hands and fight back by shooting or trapping predators that threaten their livestock and livelihood.

Tonight, however, there would be no trapping or shooting. I was simply going spotlighting. Spotlighting involves patrolling an area late at night with a hand-held lamp to search for nocturnal predators. Most of the time, it is done by vehicle or by foot, depending on weather and the necessity of stealth approach. We would be driving to specific locations and hit the ground on foot from there.

Since I was unfamiliar with the ranch, it was necessary to tour the grounds before sunset in order to see where predators were most likely to hide. Lauren Moore, Dennis’ 19-year-old daughter, offered to give me “the A tour” in the Denali, the family’s all-purpose vehicle. I figured it was more authentic than the Mercedes-Benz parked in the wrap-around driveway.

In the daylight, the ranch is beautiful. Perched atop a hill about three miles from Hamilton down Fish Hatchery Road, the 270-acre spread offers a spectacular view of the Bitterroot Mountains. The area consists of rolling hills dotted by man-made structures used to house machinery or livestock. Structures and landmarks have names like “the Red Shed” or “the Woods.”

As we passed “the Big Ditch,” Lauren gestured to a gully running under the road that was associated with a tragic accident. In May 2009, an 87-year-old man was walking his dog by the Big Ditch, which lies between Shalkaho Road and Grantsdale, when he drowned, most likely while trying to retrieve his hat from the icy cold water. The Moores’ ranch hand found the man’s body and notified the sheriff.

The Denali slowed as we passed a stretch of barbed-wire fence and Lauren pointed to the spot where an ominous message had been left for the area’s predators. Several weeks before, Lauren and her father had shot a coyote and placed the carcass on the fence as a grim calling card to deter further attacks on their livestock. She laughed when she thought of the sight and said she took a picture of it with her cell phone to show her friends.

Not far from the house, a white work truck ambled down the road before stopping in a cloud of dust. The driver, Brian Hale, is the Moores’ ranch hand who lives on the property at the base of the hill. A gruff, stocky man with a dusty leather cowboy hat and a dark Fu Manchu mustache, Hale was the one who first determined that something had been threatening the horses. Lauren asked him if there were any new developments, but he just shook his head.

“Something spooked these horses,” he said, pointing back to the horse barn and corrals. “I don’t know what the hell it was, but it wasn’t coyotes — bear, mountain lion, something,” he said.

He tossed a spotlight and an electric cord into the Denali and pointed to a wooded gulley, where he instructed us to check around midnight when it would be dark enough to search for predators. Having finished work for the day, he wished us luck and drove off down the road.

We passed the Red Shed and its graveyard of spare parts and rusted machinery that had outlived their usefulness and now sat idle in the grass. Beyond the shed, we navigated the narrow, winding road that circled the Woods and drove down the hill to view the small herd of Scottish highland cattle.

Highland cattle are shorter and hairier than common Angus cattle. Developed in the Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland, they are reddish brown and have long curving horns that can cause serious injury. Lauren pointed out the “crooked-horned cow” and warned that all someone has to do is “get near her and she’ll kill you.” Though the highlanders’ small size makes them more susceptible to predators, their horns are formidable weapons that make even the most brazen predators think twice before attacking.

We made the final loop and returned to the house as the sun set over the mountains. It would be hours before we could begin spotlighting.

Back at the house, Dennis Moore sat in his leather armchair by the fire, sharing stories about his struggle with predators. Moore, 62, is a retired veterinarian who has a long history with dangerous animals and even has a special license to work on larger predators. He has no mercy for coyotes that target his herds.

He pointed to an antique rifle manufactured in 1892 that his great-grandfather used to shoot coyotes on his family farm in Nebraska and said that he still uses it on occasion. Like most ranchers, he is unapologetic about shooting coyotes. He says they adapt to any population and will continue coming back as long as there’s open space to roam. While he doesn’t think twice about shooting coyotes, he refuses to trap them. “I don’t believe in trapping,” he said. “It’s just kind of inhumane and there are also a lot of dogs around.”

It seemed like an odd contradiction. No matter which methods they employ, the fact remains that ranchers kill wild creatures for following their impulses. Coyotes need to eat. Placing restraints on what should and should not be done to them makes sense, but targeting animals for doing what comes naturally is hard to understand. After all, is it really the coyote’s fault that its natural food sources are drying up, which is why it’s targeting livestock?

Moore said that most of the area’s predators come down from the nearby Sapphire Mountains as other predators displace them from their natural habitat. They also migrate from higher elevations in search of food. The natural prey that predators seek, such as deer, often descends from the mountains as grazing becomes more difficult. This migration has historically affected wolves.

“The old saying was ‘spotted fever was a big problem on the west side and wolves were a big problem on the east,’” Moore said. While hunters decreased the area’s wolf populations several years ago, they created a new problem. There was no mountain lion activity near Hamilton when the family moved to the area 15 years before, but wolves displaced mountain lions from the Sapphires before their own population dwindled. Now, Moore said, he’s seen numerous signs of mountain lions, but no live sightings.

“They’re a difficult species to get a count on because they’re nocturnal, stealth in movement,” he said.

As a result of continuing displacement, Moore foresees an increase in the severity of predator attacks and says the problem needs better management by the MTFWP or it will continue to worsen. In fact, it already has.

In the past year, he’s captured a bobcat and an abandoned bear cub that had to be transported by the authorities to a sanctuary near Helena. While the increase in large predators is alarming, it’s the coyotes that are the greatest nuisance.

He said he’s seen coyotes attack calves, but his losses are often hard to attribute to predators. It’s difficult to determine if predators really kill and eat the calves or if the calves die naturally and are eaten by scavenging coyotes, he said.

Tonight, our focus is on whatever has been scaring the horses. Moore said he was curious to know what it was, believing it must be bigger than a coyote to get such a rise out of the horses.

At about 11:00 p.m., it was finally dark enough to begin spotlighting. Lauren and I grabbed heavy coats and piled into the Denali. Her father gruffly wished us luck.

“You’ll be lucky to see one,” he warned before we pulled out of the garage.

As we drove along the now slightly more familiar road, the landmarks we’d seen earlier in the day were obscured by blackness. We stopped first at the Red Shed and parked amid the scattered pieces of old farm machinery. We waited in the vehicle as the interior lights slowly faded to black before we quietly got out of the car and made our way to the barbed-wire fence at the edge of the hill.

Standing in cold darkness for several minutes, we listened to the sounds of the night. In the distance to the north, we could hear cars passing along the highway, heading east to Missoula or west to the Idaho border. Below us in the Woods, we could hear the faint hoot of an owl, but it soon died away and we were left in silence. We were lying in wait, just like the predators themselves, waiting for any subtle movement or faint noise to give away an animal’s position. It could be a rustling in the underbrush, a cry or anything.

I crept closer to the fence to gain a better vantage point on the area. I was careful not to create too much noise or move too suddenly and give away our position. Except that any predator in the area likely had a superior sense of hearing and vision, allowing it to sense my movements from a mile away. Also, the minute I turned the giant spotlight on, all hope of being stealthy was rendered impossible.

Perching the spotlight on a fence post, we used our vantage point to scan the Woods from side to side, looking for any indication of a coyote or something larger trying to elude us. Just like an insurgent in a war zone, the predators had the strategic advantage. They knew how to navigate the terrain, how to conceal their whereabouts and how to use the darkness for their defensive position. But we knew a few tricks too.

I searched the shadows for any hint of a reflection. When light shines off the tapetum lucidum, the mirror-like reflective tissue in the back of an animal’s eye, it glows in the dark. As we scanned the darkness we hoped the reflected light would reveal a predator’s location. But all we saw was grass, trees and dust. Even to well-trained eyes, spotting anything at such a distance would be difficult.

It was then that we heard the calls. From the base of the hill behind us, we could detect the high-pitched screech of coyotes. The sound was very faint and we continued to search the trees at the edge of the field for closer specimens. But after several scans, the calls died down and we gave up and decided to circle the Woods in the Denali while shining the spotlight into the creek bed to spot animals attempting to get a drink of water.

We were only traveling about 15 miles per hour, but the bumps in the road made the light beam bounce around, creating a dizzying swirl of red, brown and green. This made me especially glad that we hadn’t brought guns as Lauren had wanted. We saw nothing at the bottom of the ravine where the creek flowed and thus continued on down the hill past the highlanders’ corral, gazing at the city lights in the distance as we drove.

At the base of the hill, there is a cattle shed surrounded by calf shelters where the Angus herds are kept. Since we heard the coyote calls coming from this general area, we thought we’d have a better chance of seeing something. I got out of the vehicle and walked quietly until I reached a ditch. After waiting in the dark for several minutes, I turned on the spotlight and scanned the hillside and areas around the shed for any traces of movement. Nothing. I was beginning to feel dejected.

As a final attempt, Lauren suggested that we drive up to the horse barn and stake out a spot to wait for a while. We drove up the hill and parked at the edge of the pasture, waiting for something to happen. We shone the light back and forth across the expansive fields on the other side of the road, hoping for any indication of life. Suddenly, we saw several faint points of light glowing dimly in the distance. As we patiently watched, the points began to shift and move from side to side. Thinking that it had to be what we were looking for, we jumped into the Denali and raced down the road toward the unknown pack of animals.

I hung my head out the window and pointed the spotlight forwards as Lauren drove, hoping to make out distinguishable shapes as we approached. We stopped on the side of the road as close as we could get and pointed the light in the direction of the glowing eyes. It was then that we realized we had spotted a herd of grazing deer. I began to fear that Dennis had been correct when he predicted that we wouldn’t see anything of interest.

It was now after 1:00 a.m. and we decided to turn around and head for the house. Lauren stopped at the horse barn so she could feed her horses, Happy and Surprise, victims of the mysterious terror that eluded us. As she went to the barn, I took the spotlight to the fence for one final attempt to catch a predator. This was where it all began and this was where I had the best chance of seeing something.

I could hear the sound of water running through an irrigation pipe at my feet and waited before turning the spotlight on. I flipped the switch and pointed the beam directly in front of me. That’s when I saw two glowing orbs at the end of the field. They pointed directly at me before flickering like Morse code as the animal shifted its head and quickly disappeared from view. Lauren came over to see if I had spotted anything and I pointed the light in the same direction to see if the eyes remained. We saw them again briefly and determined that they must belong to a coyote and not a deer, since they were both forward-facing and much closer to the ground.

I had seen what I came for. For a fleeting moment, the predator had become the prey. I meant no harm to this creature, but I had tracked it just as it tracked the cattle or horses on the ranch. I had to use patience and strategy to uncover its position, but all the while it still eluded me.

After several minutes of scanning back and forth in the same direction, we gave up and decided to return to the house. We were content that we had seen something, but the “unknown predator” that had terrorized the horses only days before remained in the darkness beyond our reach.