The western United States is known for vast farmlands. Farming is a fairly classic American occupation and a vital one at that. A hot news headline recently has been about a massive threat to our crops: the dying bee. What you might not be hearing about is a threat to our livestock farms: wild wolves. Wolves bring up fear in most people’s imaginations. They are also associated with magic and nobility, but we must remember that wolves are dangerous predators.
Although wolves were once a staple species in the western U.S., they are quite uncommon today. In the 1940s, in order to protect local livestock and communities, wolves were completely killed off in the state of Oregon and much of the west, thanks to the help of state-sponsored hunts. Wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in Idaho by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the 1990s. As wild wolves will want to do, they spread out to new territories, making their way back to Oregon in the late 2000s. Currently, there are eight packs of wolves and at least 64 individuals in the state.
As scary as wolves may seem, they are a very important part of the natural ecosystem. More wolves in the west is a good thing in many ways. Unfortunately, it is hard for livestock farmers to see the return of wolves in a positive light. This is mostly because wolves like to prey on their livestock. Farmers depend on their livestock as a source of income to feed their families. Losing valuable livestock is devastating to many farmers.
Livestock farmers in the west have traditionally used Great Pyrenees and Pyrenees mix breeds as guard dogs to protect their herd. For a long time, these breeds did a fine job of protecting the livestock from the regional threats: coyotes and cougars. However, since the return of the mighty wolf, these breeds have been less successful, sometimes becoming the prey themselves.
In order to protect livestock from bigger predators, researchers want to investigate how well a bigger breed of guard dog will do. In Europe, farmers use large guard dogs to protect their livestock from wolves. Three breeds they’ve decided to try are the kangal from Turkey, the karakachan from Bulgaria, and the cap de gado transmontano from Portugal. “These are all breeds that historically have been used to protect from wolves and even brown bears,” Julie Young said, a research wildlife biologist from the National Wildlife Research Center in Logan, Utah. “The best way to find out if these dogs work is to try them,” she added.
The dogs are sent to Oregon as puppies and are almost immediately introduced to the livestock they’re protecting. “With all guard dogs this is an important stage,” explained Randy Mills, livestock agent for the Oregon State University Extension Service in Pendleton. “It’s that bond that creates that protective behavior [towards livestock] later on in life.”
Young plans to track the dogs and some of the livestock they are looking after with GPS tracking collars and simulate a predator attack. The GPS data will give her an idea of how the dogs will respond to a predator, regarding how close to the animals the dogs will stay when threatened. The fake predator will incorporate real wolf fur, but she assures us it’s not a taxidermy wolf. “It’s more like a large stuffed animal and a wolf call,” Young explained.
The research is currently centered on sheep farmers in Oregon. There is also a study being done on a farm in Washington state, as well as four in Idaho, and four more in Montana. They are primarily testing the European guard dogs with sheep, but the dogs should also be able to protect other livestock, such as cows from wolves and other predators. The one major difference that might make tracking cattle more difficult is that sheep tend to stick together, whereas cows prefer to spread out while grazing.
The research team currently has a budget of $220,000 for this year. They are being funded by Utah State University and Wildlife Services, a federal agency that is concerned with human and wildlife conflict. Some European guard dog puppies sell for around $1,500, but the researchers found kangal guard dogs for sale in Turkey for only $300. The biggest cost at the moment is shipping the dogs.
In Central Oregon, Jennifer Cole and her husband use a breed European guard dogs from Italy, called maremma, to protect their goat farm. The dogs weigh 110 to 130 pounds and patrol the farm for cougars and coyotes. They feel confident their dogs could defend their goats against wolves as well. Since Cole got the guard dogs, they went from seeing about six cougars in a year to seeing none. “We could not have goats out here without them,” Cole said.
GPS Tracking Used To Help Save Livestock
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