Ray Bittner, lead of the predation pilot project being spearheaded by the Manitoba Beef Producers, is looking at a lot of ways to keep a healthy distance between livestock and predators.
There is special penning, with seven strings of electric wire and predator-resistant gates to keep problem animals out. There are game cameras, able to give producers a better idea of what wildlife is passing through and to send those photos to a smartphone. There are GPS collars, meant to track cattle movements in the pasture, and GPS ear tags, which not only track livestock, but send an alert when rate of movement implies animals are being chased.
There are deadstock composting pens, meant to remove the temptation for predators, and veterinary assessments, based on the idea that healthy animals give less draw for predation.
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On the other technological end, there are simple cowbells.
In most of those cases, producers are interested enough to put their names down, and their money up, to put those strategies through their paces.
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From 2015-19, the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation reported anywhere from 1,417 and 1,619 cattle and 322 to 502 sheep taken annually by predators like wolves, bears or coyotes. Those numbers do not include cases where a carcass could not be found or producers could otherwise not make an insurance claim.
Why it matters: Predation losses can be hard to recoup, especially when there’s no carcass found.
The pilot project is now in the latter part of its three-year mandate, slated to end in 2023. The pilot seeks to both gauge the scope of predation — a sticking point for years in outdoor livestock sectors — and to locally test potential mitigation strategies used in other regions.
According to presentations to producers in late 2021, producer shares of the bill could range anywhere from $164 for four fox lights (solar-powered flashers meant to distract predators) to $610 for five acres of fladry wire (single-wire electric fence with streamers every 18 inches).
“We’re exiting the setup phase and we’re starting to enter the evaluation phase,” Bittner said. “So producers who received some of these things will start commenting back to us. What worked? What didn’t work? What could be done to make it work better?”
Progress was hindered during the pandemic due to lack of public meetings and difficulties with farm visits, he added. Drought in 2021, with its financial and feed challenges, also curbed participation.
Remaining chances
Most slots with the program have now been filled, Bittner said, although the call is still open for producers interested in fladry wire or fox lights.
The five-acre land base of their fladry wire parcels is tiny compared to most pastures, he acknowledged, but noted that the strategy is suited less for full-season protection, and more for strategic windows during vulnerable stages like calving.
Janine Wilmot, wildlife conflict biologist with the province and member of the Livestock and Predation Working Group — which helped inform the pilot — noted that fladry wire has been used to good effect in predation-heavy areas in the U.S.
“It takes advantage of the wolves’ innate fear of novel situations and novel things on the landscape,” she noted. “These flags flapping in the wind at these regularly spaced intervals, it’s just not something they’re used to encountering.”
The electrical component adds yet another layer of deterrent, she added.
It is, however, time contingent, as predators get used to seeing those flapping flags. Wilmot reiterated the point on its use for strategic windows.
From the field
The Ethelbert community pasture is no stranger to predators, and is one of the sites signed up with the pilot.
There, the problems are mostly with timber wolves and the occasional black bear, according to pasture manager Warren Jacobson. He says the pasture has seen up to 35 to 40 kills in a grazing season, during some of the most active years in his memory.
“You get bad years and better years. There’s always predation,” he said.
Select cattle on the north end of the pasture were to be fit with GPS collars under the predation pilot as of the third week of June. In addition to that, the community pasture now features a deadstock composting pen. Jacobson added that he has independently run game cameras on the property for years.
“I think the collars would be a good idea because we have so much brush pasture. It might help to see where the cattle are travelling or how quickly they’re being pushed from one end of the field to the other,” he said.
The composting pen was not arduous to set up, he added, noting that getting deadstock to the pen will be the larger issue, given the rough landscape.
Timeline
Not all installations under the pilot were complete as of the end of June, but Bittner estimates many test sites will see some evaluation by fall 2022.
“We’ve gone through some really productive discussions trying to understand all the complexities and nuances of the issue,” Wilmot said of the working group. “It’s not a very straightforward issue. And it’s been a problem for centuries. It’s not a problem that we’re probably going to solve in the foreseeable future.”
Also associated with the pilot, Bittner pointed producers to the Manitoba Problem Predator Removal Program, which taps an assigned trapper from the Manitoba Trappers Association to actively remove a problem predator following a predation loss claim. Costs for the program are paid by the provincial government.
