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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-BORN HYDATID DISEASE: FACT VERSUS FALLACY

by TERRI ADAMS, The Prairie Star
There's an uproar over wolves carrying the disease, but they're not the only ones

Many people are in an uproar over wolves and some of those same people are worried about hydatid disease, claiming wolves are carrying and spreading the disease.

While there is some truth to that claim, wolves are not the only carriers of the disease.

Any canine can carry and spread the disease, from wolves and coyotes to the family pet. It depends on the circumstances, not the species.

The disease is caused by a tapeworm and there are nine different strains of the disease, according to Gary McCallister, professor of biology at Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colo. He has researched hydatid disease in Southern Utah, western Colorado and the Navajo Indian reservation.

McCallister said the eggs need to pass through two different hosts, a carnivore and an ungulate (grazing animal) to complete their cycle.

Hydatid eggs are too tiny to see. When these eggs pass out of an infected canine they can fall on and stick to anything -hair, plants, grasses, he said.

Read the whole story HERE

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