Co founder, Suzanne Asha Stone, of the Wood River Wolf Project in Idaho will talk with hosts Brunella and Rachel Wednesday May 27, 2020 at 10:30 AM Central Time on Wolves of Douglas County News Facebook Page.
Suzanne has worked for over three decades to restore wolves to the Rockies and Pacific Northwest. Initially, she served as an intern for the Central Idaho Wolf Steering Committee and as a member of the 1995/1996 USA/Canadian Wolf Reintroduction team restoring wolves to Yellowstone National Park and Central Idaho. From 1999 to 2019, she led development of Defenders of Wildlife’s wolf coexistence measures and models to minimize losses of livestock and gray wolves in the West. She is the co-founder of the Wood River Wolf Project in Idaho and has won numerous awards for her leadership in wildlife conflict resolution and coexistence including being a two time recipient of the Animal Welfare Institute’s Christine Stevens Wildlife Award for innovative research on humane, nonlethal tools and techniques for wildlife conflict management. She is the lead author/researcher of Adaptive use of nonlethal strategies for minimizing wolf–sheep conflict in Idaho published by the Journal of Mammalogy in 2017. Suzanne helped to establish several of the nonlethal/coexistence measures to minimize conflicts between wild predators and livestock today including FoxLights, Turbofladry, range riders, wind dancers, carcass removal, use of multiple livestock guardian dogs, and more. She is working now all over the world to help transform archaic wildlife management from lethal to humane nonlethal methods.
Nonlethal control measures take advantage of wolves’ natural wariness and suspicion of anything new and different in their territory. —www.woodriverwolfproject.org
Wood River Wolf Project – The Wood River Wolf Project is a collaborative of conservation organizations, ranching operations, community members, and county, state and federal agencies working together to use proactive, nonlethal deterrents to minimize livestock and wolf conflicts. Since 2008, the Wood River Wolf Project has been helping Blaine County ranchers in Central Idaho implement nonlethal strategies to successfully reduce livestock losses and protect native wildlife.
History of History of Wood River Wolf Project
We are entering year 13 of our program to demonstrate that ranchers can coexist with wolves and that nonlethal deterrents are effective at protecting both livestock, wolves and other native predators. The Wood River Wolf Project’s Project Area covers approximately 282,600 acres of rugged country in the Sawtooth National Forest.More »
Non Lethal Tools
Foxlights keep predators away by using a computerized varying flash that uses 9 LED bulbs that project 360 degrees and can be seen from 1 kilometer or more away. These lights make it appear that someone is patrolling with a flashlight, which keeps predators away. There are battery-powered and solar-powered Foxlights and we are using both. They were invented by Ian Whalan, an Australian farmer who wanted to keep foxes away from his lambs. Our project coordinator Suzanne Stone brought the first Foxlights from Australia to the USA in 2015. The Wood River Wolf Project was one of the first test sites for Foxlights in North America. Foxlights are now being used all over the world to protect livestock from lions, snow leopards, wolves, foxes, and other predators. http://www.wolfriverwolfproject.org
High-powered spotlights, such as the one pictured on the left, are also an effective tool and can be used in addition to headlamps when the herders are keeping watch over the sheep at night.
Photo: U.S. Forest Service
Fladry and Turbofladry http://www.woodriverwolfproject.org
Fladry is a string of flags on stakes or rope used to funnel wolves toward hunters in medieval times. Researcher Marco Musiani from the University of Calgary studied the use of fladry in eastern Europe and redesigned it as a nonlethal deterrent to help protect livestock and wolves from conflicts.
Dr. Musiani recognized that fladry takes advantage of wolves’ natural wariness and their suspicion of anything new and different in their territory. For reasons that we still don’t really understand, wolves shy from crossing a properly maintained fladry barrier, often for long enough to keep lambs and calves away from harm.
Like standard fladry, turbofladry consists of cording with colored flagging spaced evenly along its length. But turbo-fladry is strung on electric fencing material. It combines the effectiveness of non-electric fladry with the shock delivering power of an electric fence, so that if a wolf does overcome its initial fear of normal fladry and attempts to pass, a shock is delivered and reinforces the avoidance instinct. Rick Williamson, our project mentor and former USDA Wildlife Services nonlethal specialist, created turbofladry and his wife Carol built it for distribution worldwide.
Join us Wednesday May 27th at 10:30 AM Central Time on Wolves of Douglas County News Facebook Page Click Here
Brunella and Rachel will talk with guest Suzanne Asha Stone Co founder of the Wood River Wolf Project and you’ll get to ask her questions.