Sacred sandwiches and wolves

Lead topic last week was miracles and dealt with what I thought was the latest and wildest one I'd ever heard about, where the lady in Cambodia was cured of serious disease by a cow's lick. Had no more than gotten that column off to the newspapers when there was a new mind-boggling miracle story on the radio. Went into mild shock so don't remember names or the town, but this American lady discovered "the face of the Virgin" in her sandwich. That's what it said, "IN HER SANDWICH!" Don't know if it was peanut butter or what, but it could have been baloney.

The rest of the story is that she put a picture of the "sacred Virgin miracle sandwich" on e-Bay and asked for bids. The unbelievable part is that someone bought it for $28,000. We can only hope and pray that it wasn't anyone from Montana.

I've made two left-over turkey sandwiches since Thanksgiving then sat there studying them for a half hour before taking a bite. $28,000 is a lot of money.

Bob and Hubie Weber run sheep ranches down in Paradise Valley near Livingston. In the past year, wolves from the Lone Bear Pack have killed and eaten 38 of the Weber's sheep.

Now things are getting complicated because the Defenders of Wildlife paid them for 29 sheep the wolves got last year but they said they're not going to pay for anymore sheep unless the Webers build a six foot fence around 4.5 acre pastures to keep the wolves out, and Defenders are paying $12,500 for the fences through "donations."

I personally admire the Friends of Wildlife because they put their money where their mouth is. They are a private organization which has raised and paid out tens of thousands to ranchers for livestock killed by predators. I've always felt that when Congress decides to save a threatened species like wolves and grizzly bears, they should pass compensatory legislation so that everyone in the country takes responsibility for resulting losses. Leaving that job to a relatively few private volunteers is not fair.

Back to the Webers. The Defenders have in the past helped ranchers scare wolves away with bright waving flags, noisemakers, and you name it.

Those efforts have done about as much good as my cussing squirrels on the bird feeder.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has shot six members of the Lone Bear Pack and are looking for he remaining three.

Maybe those three are the ones who recently jumped a five foot fence in Paradise Valley to eat a couple of goats.

Defenders Field Rep, Suzanne Stone, says they are hoping fences prove to be an alternative to killing the wolves.

The so called "wolf-free" fences are done at Bob and Hubie's ranches, and if the wildlife biologists manage to shoot the remaining three wolves, I've no doubt there will be others coming along to test the barricades.

Allow me a couple of observations. A few years ago I had a neighbor move in with a pit bull, about half the height of a wolf. Told the neighbor I'd appreciate it if his dog did not come over to my yard so he built a six foot chain link fence. The next day the pit bull was in my yard. Don't now how he did it, but there he was.

Back in the mid 1970s, I took my sons and neighbor boys to the Al Oeming Game Farm east of Edmonton, Alberta. It was a wonderful place to view wildlife up close.

Oeming had a large fenced area for wolves and as an extra precaution, outside of the ten foot inner fence was a runway six feet wide with an eight foot fence separating it from the outside world where we were standing.

There was a magnificent multi colored Alpha male in the pack and suddenly something made him nervous and upset.

I asked a nearby worker what was the matter with the wolf so she turned to look then said, "That male is very defensive of him mate and their pups. He must be concerned about a new wolf in that other pen."

Right then the big wolf did something amazing, he suddenly ran toward the fence and using a three or four foot mound of dirt as a launching pad . . . cleared that 10-foot barrier.

He scraped his back legs on the top but went on over with no trouble and began pacing in the runway. Several workers calmed him down and eventually got him back into his own area. The worker I had talked to told me it was the first time she'd ever seen a wolf jump the fence but noted that particular wolf was young, four years, and especially strong.

It may, or may not mean anything, but we have to remember, those wolves in Paradise Valley are descendants of Alberta packs . . . . where Al Oeming got his.

George Ostrom is the news director of KOFI Radio and a Flathead Publishing Group columnist.