Wildlife Services personnel work to find balance between predators, landowners

Wildlife management and predator control have always been important in West Texas.

According to state officials, animal damage to agriculture, natural resources, property, and human health and safety cost millions of dollars in losses each year, and since wildlife is the property of the state, Texas has a responsibility to respond to these situations while trying to protect the species causing the problems.

Stray dogs have long been a problem for wildlife producers in the United States. Sheriff PeeWee McDougall examines dead sheep killed by dogs near Lander in Fremont County, Wyoming in this Associated Press photo from 1964.

Farmer and rancher Justin Strube said the program is important to his family’s operations.

“We’ve had predator problems east of town,” he said, explaining about how the Wildlife Services Division provides assistance. “They come out and scout tracks, set snares, and actually hunt some… It’s a combination of whatever works.

“Right now, I have guard dogs, and since traps and snares don’t mix well with guard dogs, we’re concentrating on other things.

“They scout out where the coyotes are, and they might line up a helicopter hunt based on what they’ve seen.

Loyd Whitehead owns the Rocking Chair Ranch’s historic Lipan Springs Division, along with other properties, and he echoed Strube’s sentiments.

“We’d be out of business in no time without this program,” Whitehead said. “We run cattle, sheep and goats – and of course, deer are also a very important part of our operations – and predators kill a lot of baby deer.

“We get nearly every kind of predator on the ranch … Bobcats, coyotes, occasionally a mountain lion … We get three species of eagles and sometimes caracaras – of course the eagles are protected, so you can’t do anything but try to scare them off.

“We work with our trapper constantly, and anytime we see evidence of a kill, we call him and let him know.

“Of course, they’re spread out across a very large area, but they check into it as soon as they can.”

Whitehead said as far a funding goes, producers are glad to participate in checkoff programs from the government that provides one dollar for every sheep or goat sold to aid the efforts.

“If we didn’t have trapping programs and the ability to hunt predators, West Texas would be void of sheep and goats pretty quick,” he said

Locally, the San Angelo District of Texas Wildlife Services consists of 14 counties stretching from Glasscock County in the northwest to Comanche County in the east, down to San Saba County and back to include Schleicher and Irion counties.

The office is managed by Doug Steen, who said he grew up in Victoria County and went to Texas A&M where he got a degree in wildlife biology and went to work for the Service in 1993. Working his way up from the field to a supervisory position, he has been with the San Angelo office for seven years.

State trapper Clinton Elliott of Fort Stockton demonstrates how to set up M44 cyanide traps to combat coyotes in this Standard-Times file photo.

Steen said his office’s job, resolving conflicts between landowners and wildlife, has grown to embrace an integrated-management approach, which keeps biological, legal, financial and technical considerations in mind when looking for solutions.

How the program works

“When we’re managing wild animals, you don’t necessarily have to manage them on every single property, because property lines don’t mean anything to wildlife,” he said.  “We can actually manage a population that’s causing a problem on one ranch and influence the population for other ranches in the area…So we don’t need access to every ranch in the county to have an effective program.”

Steen said they don’t have free-rein to work on any land in the district, and landowners who are having predator problems must sign a participation agreement before they can work on their property.

“Once we have a signed agreement, we can head out there and take a look at what’s going on, and what the best mode of operation is going to be to solve their problem,” Steen said.

“We use every legal method that is labeled for the control of wild animals. When we first go to a property, the No. 1 thing we’re looking for is what’s causing the problem, and we’re also looking for things the rancher can do, for instance, to help the situation, too.

File photos from 1973 -- Top photo:  A cow tries to help her calf after an attack by a female coyote, which the rancher ran off. The calf died. Bottom photo: An injured goat stands by the bodies of sheep and goats killed by coyotes during a raid on the herd.

“We ask questions; Can they try night-penning, or changing the time they're lambing, or something like that… Adding a guard animal, or changing the fencing… So we look at things they can do to potentially solve the problem, in addition to trapping or eliminating predators.”

Steen said this integrated-management approach has proven to be the best solution.

“One tool is not necessarily going to solve the problem, and in fact, sometimes it takes several different measures, so what you have to do is figure out what tools will work in conjunction with one another,” he said.

Steen’s office submits the trapper’s report to the Commissioners Court, detailing their activity in the county, which includes two different loss reports.

“There are reported losses, which are exactly that – somebody calls us to report a loss,” he explained. “We don’t necessarily see or confirm them, but a rancher or business or homeowner reports to us that they’ve experienced a loss due to a wildlife species.

“Verified losses are kept separately, and that means we have actually seen the loss, and confirmed that it was caused by the species we list in the report,” he said.

“That could be anything from a lamb carcass to a black vulture pulling windshield wipers off of a car at the lake… But that means we’ve actually seen the vultures and the damage to the car, to verify that it occurred.”

For last year's Trapper's Report, reported and verified losses had a combined total of $54,654.

Steen said while the combined totals give an important insight into the scope of the situation, they do not represent every single loss, as some go unreported.

Where the funding comes from

Steen said the program is conducted under the aegis of the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, and is a 3-tiered funding system with federal, state and local money.

“Some money comes from the United States Department of Agriculture Plant Health Inspection Service’s Wildlife Services, and the state side of our funding comes from AgriLife’s Wildlife Service Division, and the third level of funding comes from the counties we serve, trapping clubs and things like that, which goes into the Texas Wildlife Damage Management Association.

“So, the way our program works, is that we assess a fee to the county, or a club, or a combination of the two, for the services we provide."

Steen said the monies are collected statewide, and distributed to each district according to several factors.

“Roughly speaking, the amount we assess the counties is about half the cost of having a wildlife professional employed in the county,” he explained.

Tom Green County's share for the program in 2018 was $20,700.

Steen said the San Angelo District employs about 28 people, and includes one airplane at the San Angelo airport and one helicopter at the Brownwood airport.

Steen said there are some aspects of the Service’s role most people are probably not aware of.

“We also do a lot with public health and animal health,” Steen said. “It’s important, because some folks think we’re just out on the ranches all the time, trapping coyotes, but we actually work quite a bit to sample animals for the Texas Department of State Health Services and the Texas Animal Health Commission, and we’re out there sampling different wildlife species so they can maintain their vigilance on the landscape as far as things like rabies go.

“There’s actually quite a history of grey-fox rabies in this area; this used to be a real hotbed for that, so we work to keep that under control,” he said.

For the 2017-18 fiscal year, the program reported 166 intentional targets, consisting of 5 bobcats, 99 coyotes, 30 grey foxes, 1 red fox, 14 raccoons and 17 black vultures.

Other things they do

Steen said they also try to lend a hand city residents as well when they can be of service.

“We also help folks in town…We loan cage traps and things out of this office, to help people catch raccoons or whatever out of their yards. We don’t have the resources to send somebody out to handle each case, but we try to help out by providing them with the information and sometimes the equipment, so they can do the job themselves."

The Texas Wildlife Services office in San Angelo is located in Room 317 of the O.C. Fisher Federal Building, 33 E. Twohig Ave. The telephone number is 325-655-6101.

Matthew McDaniel is a journalist covering community news and faith-related items in West Texas. Send him a news tip at mmcdaniel2@gannett.com. Consider supporting West Texas journalism with a subscription to GoSanAngelo.com.