Leading the pack in wolf management
https://www.cmich.edu/news/article/pages/wolf-management-research.aspxNonlethal ways to manage wolves
From about 2003-11, Gehring and his team explored three ways to keep wolves from killing livestock. Here is what they learned:
Electrical barriers: The team trapped wolves in Wisconsin to fit them with radio tags and collars for aversive conditioning. In the same way systems such as Invisible Fence use mild electric shocks to train dogs to stay in a yard, wolves were trained to stay away from farmers' pastures. Because wolves are pack animals, Gehring said, conditioning just a few individuals can keep an entire pack away from grazing land: "They learn, and they transfer information."
Fluttering flags: They erected "fladry" — string fencing with strips of fabric tied every couple of feet to flap in the breeze — to create barriers wolves won't cross. Gehring said on one Upper Peninsula farm, wolves had killed 78 lambs in a year. "We came in and we put fladry up, and for the next three years they had no losses because they had no wolves coming into their pastures."
Puppy power: They supplied selected Upper Peninsula farmers with Great Pyrenees puppies that would grow to become livestock-guarding dogs. Gehring and his students would deliver puppies in the U.P. during their spring break, and grad students would offer technical support throughout the summer. In four years of the grant-funded project, wolf attacks at the farms fell to zero. Gehring continued the dog program for four years after the grant ended.
Their projects earned international respect. In a 2016 review, the scientific journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment said two of Gehring's studies met the "gold standard" for scientific rigor, the only studies to receive that designation out of a dozen studies it considered worldwide.
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They do have to be raised with the livestock they are going to guard.
They are very common here (the Amish even have puppy mills of them) for guarding goats and sheep. My hay guy told me awhile back that he had a friend with Pyr’s to guard his goats. He heard the coyotes going one night, and a lot of commotion. By the time he got dressed, and got where they were, there was one dead Pyr, one badly injured—and 7 dead coyotes. They will fight to the death to protect their charges.
We have 3 rescued Pyr's, but they were all pets. They still patrol our property, and let us know if anything is amiss.
Hope this study makes a difference in the growing and horrible prevalence of wolf hunts.
Coyotes, in a pack, are extremely cunning, dedicated and dangerous.
That's a very handsome Great Pyrenees!!
