Defenders Magazine

On the Ground: Happy Trails: Protecting Livestock and Wildlife

By Brad DeVries

© Brad DeVries

Keeping wolves and grizzly bears from getting into trouble with livestock is serious business, but it also has its lighter moments.

"Sometimes it gets a little boring up here, but those cracker shells sure liven things up," says a grinning Cort Strobel of the Crazy Mountain Cattle Company and the Camp Creek Cattle Company, a ‘range rider’ at a remote cattle camp in the Gallatin National Forest, near Yellowstone National Park. From the back of his horse, Strobel keeps a watchful eye on his employers’ 500 head of cattle grazing in the forest. His vigilance and occasional use of loud but harmless "cracker" shotgun shells help protect both livestock and the wolves that live in the Gallatin.

Strobel’s work is just one of many projects supported by the Bailey Wildlife Foundation Proactive Carnivore Conservation Fund, founded and administered by Defenders of Wildlife. The fund, named for the family that donated money to launch it, has supported projects ranging from the rental of alternative grazing land and purchase of hay so ranchers could raise their cattle away from wolf dens in Idaho, to electric fencing to keep grizzly bears out of commercial beehives in Montana.

Defenders pioneered the use of economic tools to promote predator conservation in 1987, when the organization set up a program to compensate ranchers for livestock lost to wolves. This program, The Bailey Wildlife Foundation Wolf Compensation Trust, helped improve local acceptance of wolves and pave the way for the wolves’ return to Yellowstone and Idaho. The proactive fund, started in 1998, builds on the years of experience gained from this sibling program.

"Wolves are extremely vulnerable to illegal poisoning, shooting and trapping," says Suzanne Stone, northern Rockies field representative for Defenders of Wildlife. "If we didn’t have the tolerance of the local people, we wouldn’t have wolves back on the ground, no matter what the laws say."

The original compensation program, though successful, has one drawback: it only swings into action when there are dead livestock on the ground. Losing livestock to predators doesn’t just cause financial losses, says Mike Stevens of Lava Lake Land and Livestock, an all-natural lamb producer near Ketchum, Idaho. The company lost 20 ewes, three rams and one Great Pyrenees guard dog to wolves over two nights last year. The financial toll was between $5,000 and $6,000, but there was also "the emotional impact of feeling like we’ve let our animals down, in particular the guard dog," Stevens says.

The proactive fund allows Defenders to head off many such problems before they occur. Defenders works with individual ranchers and farmers to plan and implement proactive projects, and shares the costs with them. Between 1998 and 2004, Defenders invested more than $360,000 in a wide range of measures to keep wolves and grizzlies out of the way of livestock operations and other human activities.

One of the successful approaches developed through the fund is the use of fladry, an Old World wolf-hunting technique. Fladry is deceptively simple: a barrier created from a light rope a few feet off the ground with streamers of colored cloth hanging freely from it. Centuries ago, hunters in Poland discovered that wolves would not cross this artificial barrier, even when chased. As used today in the Rockies, fladry is effective at temporarily keeping wolves out of cattle pastures and sheep bedding grounds.

Researchers are now taking fladry a step further. Instead of using rope for the top line, a group that includes Defenders, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service and others is experimenting with using single-strand electric fencing powered with solar energy. This "turbo fladry" shows promise in dramatically extending the time that fladry will keep wolves and livestock safe. Rick Williamson, wolf management specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, says it’s the widest range of collaborators he has ever seen on such a project, and it has worked. "It was a success, a step in the right direction," Williamson notes.

Fladry is not the only tool in the proactive conservation toolbox. Defenders has used proactive funds to help purchase extra guard dogs in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming so shepherds can run as many as six dogs with a band of sheep, rather than the traditional one or two. The proactive fund has supported research and installation at many sites across the country of radio-activated guard boxes, which trigger flashing lights and loud noises whenever a radio-collared wolf comes too close.

Proactive program funds have also assisted ranchers in hiring several range riders like Strobel, extra sheepherders and dozens of volunteer "Wolf Guardians" who camp near vulnerable herds in Idaho and Montana to help keep wolves away. The program also supports the purchase of bear-resistant garbage and food containers, and a "Bear Aware" campaign to educate people in bear country about the dangers of leaving garbage, pet food, birdseed and fruit in places accessible to bruins.

Best of all, the program has brought together people who don’t normally see eye-to-eye, says Lane Adamson, project director with the Madison Valley Ranchlands Group in Ennis, Montana, and a member of Defenders’ Livestock Advisory Council. "If you have all the people that don’t like wolves sit around and talk about wolves, your conversation is pretty predictable," Adamson notes. "But if you have people at the table who are responsible for the management of wolves, people who like wolves and people who don’t like wolves, then the conversation is pretty interesting."