For Gabby and Cole Thoreson, their timing couldn’t have been better.
The couple runs a horse ranch near Dillon, Montana, and had returned from a business trip to Salmon, Idaho, last Sunday.
They went to check on their horses just in time to see one of their mares, Sky, engaged in a tense standoff with a wolf that was apparently trying to kill her young foal.
“I think the good lord had his hand in it,” Cole told Cowboy State Daily about their timing.
As in parts of Wyoming, the number of large predators such as wolves and grizzly bears has been increasing in southwest Montana, Cole said.
The couple usually keeps a rifle in their side-by-side UTV, and Cole had a Montana wolf tag. But they didn’t have the rifle with them that time.
Undeterred, Cole jumped out of the side-by-side, pulled his knife and started running toward the wolf and the horses, shouting and grabbing some rocks along the way.
“I’m pretty handy at throwing rocks. I was thinking I could stun the wolf with one,” he said.
But when he was about 40 yards out, the wolf bolted away and disappeared.
An Exceptional Horse
Gabrielle took video during the incident, which shows Sky diligently putting herself between her foal in the wolf, apparently with no regard for her own safety.
Cole said he wasn’t surprised to see such behavior from Sky.
“She did a really good job. She’s still a young mare, this is only her second foal,” he said.
And it wasn’t Sky’s first brush with danger.
“When she was still just a baby herself, Sky and her mother disappeared for about a week,” Cole said. “After a week, her mother came back, but Sky didn’t show up. So, we figured she’d been killed by a mountain lion or something like that.
“But after three weeks, she just showed back up. I’m not sure where she went by herself for all that time. I’ve asked her a couple of times since, but she won’t say.”
Given Sky’s tenacity, there’s little doubt she would have fought the wolf directly, if it had come down to that. But her owners are glad they showed up before that happened, because they don’t want one of their favorite mares to get hurt.
Predators Are Increasing
After the incident, Cole called his brother, who is an outfitter and experienced predator hunter.
“He told me, ‘We need to go back out there. That wolf didn’t go away, he’s probably holed up somewhere nearby, looking for another chance,’” Cole said.
That evening, they set up on a hill overlooking the horse herd and started calling for predators by mimicking howls.
They weren’t seeing anything, but then they heard the horses raising a ruckus. There were at least two wolves that time attempting another attack.
“We realized there were wolves down there, right in the middle of the mares,” he said.
They managed to get a clear shot and filled one of their wolf tags.
Cole said he likely isn’t done with predators. He thinks it’s only a matter of time before he has a run-in with a grizzly bear. There have been rumors of what could be called a “tripod grizzly” nearby.
“Supposedly, there’s a three-legged sow (female grizzly) not very far, as the crow flies, from us. Just over the hills,” Cole said.
Grizzlies have been expanding their range in the Big Sky State, even pushing out into the northern prairies as far as Montana’s storied Missouri Breaks country. And while wolves may be hunted in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, grizzlies remain federally protected in those states and may not be hunted by the public.
Cole said that dealing with large predators is increasingly becoming part of the livestock business.
“I have a right to protect our horses,” he said. “This is our livelihood.”
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
