none

Putting up fladry in Big Wood River, ID
Photo Credit: Suzanne Stone

Learn more about the nonlethal methods to protect livestock from wolves utilized on the Big Wood River Project

LIVESTOCK AND WOLVES: PREVENTING CONFLICT WITH FLADRY

For hundreds of years, ranchers have had to address issues of protecting their livestock from natural predators, sometimes forced to do so in a lethal manner. When wolves prey upon livestock, the social tolerance for the number of depredations and the presence of these animals decreases.

Fladry, a line mounted along the top of a fence from which strips of fabric or some other material are suspended have been used to deter wolves from traversing a fence-line for centuries. First developed and used by hunters in Eastern Europe to funnel wolves into an area, once caught in the fladry trap wolves were reluctant to cross the barrier and were shot. Currently, fladry is used to confine wolf movements to certain areas and constrain their depredations on livestock through creation of barriers that wolves don’t like to cross or otherwise impair their predation ability.

A prevalent societal goal across the West is to protect valuable livestock from carnivores, reducing depredation losses, creating an eco-system where both domestic and wild animals can co-exist. Fladry can play a role among a suite of preventive measures available and offers a cost-effective mitigation tool for the problem of wolf predation on livestock on a local scale.

University of Montana Professor: Wolves are Here to Stay

Read the entire story from the Ravalli Republic by Perry Backus

University of Montana professor Mark Hebblewhite knows all about the interaction between wolves and their prey.

For more than a decade, Hebblewhite tracked elk, caribou and moose in the wilds of Canada to research just that.

Recently, he offered an overview of what he'd learned to a packed house of about 160 at Hamilton's Bitterroot River Inn during a talk hosted by the Ravalli County Fish and Wildlife Association.

Those hoping for a glimmer that someday elk numbers might rebound to something close to the record populations found in the Bitterroot before wolves came on the scene most likely left disappointed.

Hebblewhite's take home message was simple and direct.

Wolves are here to stay and elk are on the menu. Hunters can't shoot their way out of it. In places where good elk habitat is sparse, elk numbers could take a big hit.

"It's a little more of a challenge than just shooting more wolves," Hebblewhite said. "It's really a battle between humans with different values."

Considering the fact that studies have shown that elk and other ungulates do fare much better in places with good habitat, Hebblewhite said it is possible that both sides of the fence could find common ground.

"That is something that could unite the different factions," he said. "Restored habitat is what elk need to survive."