Petroleum County Stockgrowers Association

The Petroleum County Stockgrowers Association had their annual dinner at the new Community Center in Winnett Montana this past Friday. The keynote Speaker was cowboy poet Jim Hamilton, who entertained the crowd with several poems. There were give-a-ways from MidRivers Communication, 1st Security Band, Musselshell Valley Equipment, Lewistown Livestock Auction, and others.

Kraig Glazier from APHIS spoke on predator control coverage starting from Malta, going south to Yellowstone, and everything west. Scott Olsen, trapper for Petroleum County got 693 coyotes, 10,565 were killed statewide on 1120 producers. To put that in perspective, last year they removed 6730 coyotes, which is a dramatic increase. Coyotes caused 38% more damages this year than last year to the livestock industry. Nine Mountain Lions were removed byu APHIS this year , with about 34,000 dollars in damage. Last year about 20 Lions were removed. Black Bear were up 51% this year, most of that was from beehives. They did $100,000 damage. APHIS removed 21 black bears this year. Wolf damage was down 51%, they only had to remove 29 wolves statewide, with $133,000 in damage, compared to the year before that was almost $300,000 in damages. Grizzly Bears were down this year. APHIS removed 11 grizzly bear. Grizzly bear are moving further into central Montana. They have confirmed sightings in the Bear Paw mountains, and other reports have been made in the Petroleum county areas. They are moving this way. There is more damage out there that is not reported to APHIS, but they can only collect the data from what is reported to them.

The turn out for the dinner was good considering the recent snow melt and rain making everything quite muddy. The Winnett Streets have been without asphalt since being under construction. The PCSA had a bar and a band for futher entertainment after the dinner. It was a "Hot time in the Old Town" that night.