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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.

WITH WOLVES IN WOODS, EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED

It is useful to be reminded that the wolf plays a useful and legitimate role on the landscape.
by GREG TOLLEFSON, Missoulian.

As we embark on an era in which a formerly endangered species has now become a game animal, I believe it is useful to be reminded that the wolf plays a legitimate and necessary role on our landscape. I don't intend this to suggest that the concerns of those whose livelihoods can be impacted by wolves aren't valid. No human-concocted plan for the reintroduction of any species should be expected to be bug-free, and wolf reintroduction is no exception.

Read the whole story HERE

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