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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.

WOLF NUMBERS UP AGAIN, BUT EXPANSION SLOWING

1,645 wolves were counted in the Northern Rockies last year, but the population is no longer expanding as rapidly
By MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press writer

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) - Federal officials say a record 1,645 gray wolves counted in the Northern Rockies this winter shows the predators' population remains strong, but is no longer expanding as rapidly as in past years.

Since their reintroduction to the region in the mid-1990s, wolf numbers had previously grown on average by 24 percent annually in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Ed Bangs says this year's figure is up only 8 percent. Bangs says that signals that wolves have filled most of the prime habitat in the three states.

Federal officials in January declared the region's wolves were ready to come off the endangered species list. Environmental and animal rights groups have vowed to challenge that decision in court.

This story first appeared in the Associated Press on March 17, 2009

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=157&sid=5882531

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