- Our next speaker nis David Ruid
nfrom, uh, USDA-APHIS.
And he's gonna talk about
integrated predator management concepts.
Thank you, David.
- Thanks, Otto.
Thanks for having-- having me here today.
Thanks for coming here today.
Probably the bluegills are moving up
into the shallows right now, and...
[audience groans] [laughing]
[indistinct chatter]
It'd be a good day to be out there.
I want to recognize my colleague Eric Fromm.
Eric Fromm does
the lion's share of wolf and bear work
in northwest Wisconsin, including Washburn County.
So, Eric, raise your hand. Thank you.
Yeah, so we'll get going, uh, lickety-split.
So when we're talking about livestock predators
in the state of Wisconsin, nprimarily we're dealing
with wolves, black bears, nand coyotes.
Very rarely nwe'll have bobcats maybe kill
a lamb or domestic fowl, nbut typically speaking--
nthis is Cow-Calf Workshop,
when we're talking about ncow-calf wildlife predation,
we're dealing with wolves, nblack bears, and coyotes
nin the state of Wisconsin.
And I'm primarily gonna talk nabout gray wolves today
nand-- and our program
in dealing with-- nwith gray wolf conflicts
nin Wisconsin.
This is a-- this-- this map nof the U.S. represents--
those green areas represent nwhat most people feel
is suitable wolf habit nin the 48 states.
The black polygons represent nthose suitable habitat areas
that currently nare occupied by wolves.
And most recently, nwhat we have seen is,
there is now na breeding pack of wolves
that have moved ninto California.
nEastern Washington, Oregon
have recently been colonized by wolves.
So we're getting upwards of ten states
that have wolves in them, and there is
some unoccupied suitable habitat
that still exists up in the Northeast.
But as you can see,
our population of wolves is contiguous
with the three states.
And keep in mind, from a biological perspective,
our gray wolf population is classified
as a federally endangered specie.
Remember, this is a contiguous population of wolves
that extends to the Arctic Circle.
That population is 70,000 to 80,000,
maybe 90,000 animals
that exists from central Wisconsin
up into the northern latitudes of Canada and Alaska.
So we-- we'll talk about nonlethal abatement techniques
to try to resolve predator-- predator problems,
and one of-- you go back in time,
this isn't a relatively recent phenomenon.
nYou go back to 1717;
in the Cape Cod region nof Massachusetts,
there was na proposed wolf fence
to protect livestock nfrom predators,
and that would have been nbears, wolves, and coyotes,
but in 1717, npeople were thinking about,
"How do I exclude my livestock nfrom predators?"
nAnd interestingly enough,
this proposal nthat was put forth,
nit failed from complaints
from the unprotected neighbors noutside the fence
who didn't want the wolves nshut out on them,
and the proposal was na six-foot-high board fence.
Another technique that was used nwas vegetation management.
nWoods burning was used
to reduce vegetative cover nnear livestock.
There's an example of that nin the literature from 1928,
nuh, in Arkansas.
And I would imagine na lot of these techniques--
they were used in conjunction with lethal control,
but nevertheless, these were some nonlethal efforts
to separate livestock from predators.
Some of the most early scientific literature
pertaining to this topic was
from the USDA Forest Service in 1908
when they developed na predator-proof fence
in Oregon non a 2,500-acre pasture,
nand their results found that
they could successfully nfence livestock
from pre-- from coyotes, nbut it was unsuccessful
in dealing with grizzly bears nand black bears,
and I would suspect nthat this
nwas probably in an era
when wolves had likely nbeen extirpated
nfrom this particular region.
And how about this nfor a farm labor rate?
Um, three bucks a day nper eight hours.
[indistinct chatter]
And what we've seen, folks,
when wolves began to colonize the state of Wisconsin,
they colonized some of the best suitable wolf habitat
in the state, and these were big blocks
of contiguous public land
that had very, very little agriculture in it,
and there was very little conflict
between wolves and livestock
in this earlier era of wolf recovery--
recolonization in Wisconsin, you know,
which was occurring from 1980 to, oh, the mid 1990s.
But what we started to see is, this wolf population expanded.
They started to set--
establish territories nin areas
that were becoming nmore fragmented.
It wasn't the big blocks nof contiguous forestland.
As you can see-- nthis black polygon represents
na wolf pack territory,
and those open areas, nthat's agriculture.
The north end of the wolf pack nwas forested public land,
and the southern fringe nof that particular pack,
um, started to-- n[stammers]
It was fragmented nand had livestock production,
so around the mid to late '90s, nwe were starting to see
wolf packs establishing nin these areas,
and we really started to see na consistent trend
in wolves nkilling livestock annually.
And then, nas late as 2010, 2013,
nthis is an actual example
of a wolf pack territory nin Marathon County,
and you can see, npredominately,
that pack's territory nis agricultural land,
na lot of it being row crop,
but there is livestock nproduction included in that.
nSo as this-- as this
really suitable habitat nhas been saturated,
we're starting to see nwolves spilling out
of the northern forest, ncentral forest,
and establishing territories nin this--
what we would call nunsuitable habitat,
nbecause generally speaking,
when we do see wolves colonize areas like this,
there's going to be conflicts with livestock.
When we're investigating wolf complaints,
we have to put these complaints into four categories.
And this comes from the--
the Wisconsin Wolf Management Plan,
and state law drives compensation in the state,
and so we have to package wolf complaints
that we received from you into these four categories,
and they're confirmed, probable,
confirmed non-wolf-- nthat would--
a confirmed non-wolf complaint nwould be, for instance,
a farmer calls us out nabout wolves killing a calf,
and the evidence suggests nit was coyotes
nthat caused the depredation.
nOr unconfirmed.
It doesn't mean we don't know nthe reason the calf died.
It just means we know nwolves didn't kill the calf.
The interesting thing nabout this photograph,
if you notice, nthere's a magpie in it.
Eric took this picture nwith a trail camera,
and it has a magpie nin Douglas County.
- [chuckles] nThat is rare.
n[indistinct chatter]
- So when we're ninvestigating complaints,
if you call us out to ninvestigate a wolf complaint,
the policy says: nCall you back in 24 hours,
and if there is na livestock animal
in reasonable condition nto examine,
we have to investigate it within 48 hours.
Generally speaking,
by the time we receive a complaint
and we have boots on the ground
looking at whatever it is that was called in
is within the day-- oftentimes,
less than three to four hours.
In the summer months, especially now
when things are starting to heat up,
it's very, very important for us to get there
as quickly as possible so we can assess that evidence
before decomposition is occurring.
Scavenging-- you know, eagles and ravens and crows,
they consume an awful lot of a depredated livestock animal,
and every time they consume that carcass,
we're losing evidence to classify it
into one of those four categories.
So every complaint has a very detailed report
that accompanies it.
And while we're out there, we have to make sure
we're actually looking at predation.
You know, was the calf stillborn
and simply scavenged by predators,
or was it born alive and killed?
So things we're looking for is manure on the hoof,
maybe its ear tag,
nit has a emasculating band,
so we know that nthe animal was born alive
and we're actually dealing nwith predation
nand not just scavenging.
n'Cause producers aren't paid
for wolves nscavenging on livestock,
only if they depredate nlivestock.
While we're there ninvestigating complaint,
nthe evidence we're looking for,
you know, are-- are wolf-- nor predator tracks.
Wolf tracks, ngenerally speaking,
they're 4 inches long nby 3 1/2 inches wide.
nCoyote tracks are much smaller.
Uh, wolf scats-- nthere's a big difference
between wolf scat biomass and coyote scat,
and generally speaking, when we're dealing with bears,
there's a lot of vegetation in bear scat
and not so much in predator scat.
You know, we're looking at where the animal was attacked.
The calf on the right,
bitten dorsally nover the vertebrae,
that's very classic of wolves nkilling young livestock,
calves that are, you know, nless than three months of age.
Coyotes typically won't do that.
The calf on the lower left with that ventral neck bite,
that's pretty signature of where coyotes
might attack a livestock animal.
And the calf on the upper left,
that was-- that was a newborn beef calf--
Red Angus calf that was attacked by coyotes
nin the flank region,
and they-- they simply nkilled the animal
by stress, blood loss, nshock, and trauma.
So the-- I mean, when we're out there
and we're looking at dead livestock,
these are the things that we're--
that we're looking for and looking at
to make sure we classify it correctly.
We also look at the canine puncture space
in the hide of a depredated animal.
The lower right, you can see the spacing of that
is about a inch and 1/2, ninch and 3/4.
That's very signature nof a wolf bite.
Fairly large diameter npuncture holes--
3/8 of an inch ngenerally speaking.
nInch and 1/2 or greater is--
is very signature of a wolf bite,
and you can see all the hemorrhaging
and shock and trauma and blood loss.
That's evidence that obviously this animal was alive
when it was bit.
And that just represents the canine tooth spacing
of a wolf right there nin that image.
nIt's about an inch and 5/8.
Another technique that nwe've used--
sometimes successfully, nsometimes unsuccessfully--
we can collect saliva or tissue
around those canine puncture holes,
and submit it to our National Wildlife Research Center.
And they can actually try to get genetic material
from the saliva and classify by specie
what saliva that has came-- what sal--
what specie that saliva came from.
It's been used successfully. It's not 100%.
I would say right now, it's about 50/50.
Carcass location, consumption, drag trail,
how much of the animal nwas consumed.
If we know nwhen it was killed,
we know when you found it, nhow much of it was consumed?
nIs it improbable for a coyote
to have consumed that much, nor a bear?
Or how big-- nhow large of an animal is it?
And was it dragged?
I mean, coyotes don't have the ability
to drag carcasses as well as wolves or bears,
and maybe it was cached.
It's not uncommon for bears to cover prey items.
Maybe it was a fawn or a livestock carcass...
[stammers] Or, uh, a roadkill.
They'll drag a roadkill deer off the edge of the highway
and then cache it with vegetation.
Wolves occasionally will do that
but fairly infrequently.
So when wolf recovery... [clears throat]
Was occurring from the '80s into the-- into the '90s
and the early 2000s
is when we started to see
the number of wolf complaints increasing.
Those blue bars represent
wolf complaints nwe've received
nin the state of Wisconsin
where we actually went out nand investigated.
Those red bars represent nthose complaints
that we classified nas confirmed or probable.
And obviously, nthe black line
is the trend nof the gray wolf population.
So there is a very strong nstatistical relationship
that says, nas wolves recovered
nand their population increased,
so did complaints nand verified complaints.
Some people have argued nthat necessarily more wolves
does not mean nmore complaints.
In the state of Wisconsin,
there's a strong correlation that it does mean that.
But-- this is important.
These are the confirmed and probable
wolf complaints nwe've received since 2003.
nSo 2003, we have 35 verif--
confirmed or probable nwolf complaints.
nIn 2003, the wolf population,
the minimum count nwas about 350 animals.
And today, in-- nlast year, in 2015,
we had 91 confirmed or probable nwolf complaints,
but if you look at roughly na ten-year average,
that trend is beginning nto stabilize somewhat,
but there's nuances to this nbecause there's been
on again/off again nmanagement scenarios
based on the federal status nof wolves,
and also the new-- the state had the authority
in '12, '13, and '14
to have a recreational wolf harvest season,
and we had an integrated program where we were--
had the authority to lethally remove wolves
that were causing depredations on farms.
So in 2015, while investigating wolf complaints,
we confirmed 46 of those nand another 10% as probable.
So over 50% nof the investigations
nthat we conducted
were classified nas confirmed or probable,
and 17% of those nwere confirmed as non-wolf.
And generally speaking, nwhen it's a non-wolf complaint,
it's usually, coyotes nhave killed a beef calf.
These beef calves are fairly nvulnerable to coyote predation
that first day or two of their life.
And resource categories--
while we're investigating complaints, beef cattle
makes up the majority of it nby over 50%.
50% of the conflicts nthat we're looking at
relates nto cow-calf producers.
Dairy cattle is a fairly nsignificant portion at 12%,
and then the next biggest ncomponent
nis dogs and hunting dogs.
nSomeone asked about a map
of wolf conflicts nin the state.
You know, I get nthis is kind of a wide scale,
nbut in 2015,
those larger red dots nrepresent
those confirmed nand probable conflicts.
The smaller dots represent nthe confirmed non-wolf
or the unconfirmed complaints nin the state.
And as you can see, it's mostly na northern forest system
in the northern nwolf harvest zones,
uh, some nin the central forest,
nand then some scattered out.
Notably is Crawford County nin southwest Wisconsin.
A pack of wolves nhas established themselves
down there, and they have ndepredated livestock
two years in a row now.
Um, in 2015,
we investigated wolf complaints in 35 counties.
And we verified or classified them
as confirmed or probable in 23 counties of the state.
You know, this is-- this is an important statistic
that we really keep track of in our program,
and that's the number of farms nin the state
where we verify wolves nhave killed livestock.
[clears throat] nThis excludes fowl.
nThis is looking at sheep,
cattle-- dairy cattle, nbeef cattle-- possibly horses.
Horse depredations nare relatively rare,
but, um, in 2010, nwas the most farms
that we had ever verified nwolf depredations on at 47,
and then you can see nthat trend started to decline
from 47 to 40 nto 32 to 28,
and during-- nin 2012, '13, and '14,
we had the recreational harvest nof wolves in the state,
and our program had nthe authority
to not only implement nonlethal abatement on farms
to try to prevent wolf depredations;
we had the authority
to set equipment on property,
and any wolves captured would be euthanized.
So in 2012, we had euthanized 57 wolves
that were causing conflict on different farms,
and producers, through shooting permits
and provisions of NR10.02
that allow livestock producers
to shoot wolves that are actively attacking livestock,
you know, there was an additional 17 animals removed
in 2012, in addition to the 57 that we removed.
So we were beginning to remove wolves
that had become associated
with depredating livestock,
and we started to see the number of farms
that wolves were killing livestock on decrease.
2014 was the last year of recreational wolf harvest
and lethal control
for livestock depredation protection,
and that number of farms jumped up to 32 last year.
[stammers] So as a livestock producer,
there's seasonal variation
in when you might expect wolves
to depredate livestock,
especially cow-calf producers.
Beginning in January nthrough March,
nit's a relatively rare event.
You don't have many nsmall animals on the farm.
All your big animals nare up around the hay ring
near the buildings, nand they're just--
nthey're not very vulnerable.
You know, but what happens, nas soon as--
nas soon as you start to calve
nand pasture greens up,
your herds get dispersed non pasture;
they're in more remote areas nof the farm.
nYou have young animals.
You have wolves non the landscape.
We start to see the uptick nin depredation
starting in end of March, nfirst of April,
and then naround the middle of May,
nend of May, it kind of peaks,
and then it starts nto drop off.
And what's occurring is, nfawning has occurred,
nand we see a decrease
in the rate of wolves ndepredating livestock
nwhen they switch over
and there's this new nfood resource that's available
on the landscape, nand that's deer fawns.
And so we see this-- nthis bimodal relationship
nwhere livestock conflicts
get a little slower nin June, July,
but as soon as we begin nto approach August,
end of July, first of August, middle of August,
the wolf pups are weaned; they're away from the dens.
They're old enough to travel with the adults,
and you can possibly
end up with an entire pack of wolves
that are called "rendezvousing,"
or they have a rendezvous site near your farm.
The bioenergetics of the wolf pack
is increased tremendously
'cause you not only have the two breeders
that need sustenance for survival;
the pups are also old enough to where they're depending
on meat for sustenance,
and we see these depredations increasing
in August and September,
and then towards the middle to end of October,
it starts to decline again,
and, you know, pasture could be
froze off by that point;
maybe your feeder calves have been shipped.
The vulnerability--
the number of vulnerable animals out there
just starts to decline,
and this rate of depredation drops off
to where when we get into November--
late November, December,
it becomes a fairly rare event.
nWhat we have seen
when livestock producers ndo have wolves
on their farms nlate in the year
nand depredations are occurring,
those can be significant issues nfor that producer,
'cause those wolves are-- n[clears throat]
They're going to spend time nat that farm hunting livestock
because they've become nacclimated to doing it.
And, you know, nwhat predisposes
an individual farmer nto a livestock depredation--
you know, I said earlier, nthere's 32 farms last year
that we verified nwolves killing livestock on.
We know that nit occurs more than that.
[clears throat] nThey may kill a calf,
consume it, and the producer's nnever aware that--
why the calf is missing; nthat has happened.
So that number of farms nis higher than 32,
but what predisposes a farm nto wolf predation
in Wisconsin is, generally, nit's a larger farm,
nusually has, you know,
50 to a few hundred nhead of cattle on it,
nmore remote pastures,
and what happens, nthese farms are just
positioned on the landscape nwhere they butt up
next to really good nwolf habitat.
And this is an aerial image out of an aircraft
flying from Ashland down along Highway 13.
So this would be right around
nMarengo, High Bridge,
York area nlooking south,
and you can see nthat pastureland right there,
but that blue haze nin the background
is the Great Divide nRanger District
nof the national forest.
There's county forest land nthere.
And there's nabout a half a million acres
nof really good wolf habitat
right up next to nthis livestock production area,
and there's a lot nof cow-calf operations
nin this area.
And you simply have nfour strands of barbed wire
nseparating your animals
from some of the best wolf habitat in the state,
and that's not-- that's not an abatement strategy.
Your fences are designed to confine livestock.
They're not designed to keep predators out of your pastures.
And, you know, farm size can range--
the biggest producer we deal with is--
he's got-- uh, about 1,200 acres.
And generally speaking, on a farm, and, uh--
generally speaking-- there are exceptions,
but the average number of calves killed per farm
using our statistics is around two calves per farm.
There are situations, as you can see,
where one particular farm, we verify--
we verified 12 calves were killed.
That particular producer had a fairly large
missing livestock claim that year also.
[clears throat]
Cattle depredated by wolves.
nUm, since they were listed
as an endangered specie nback in 1975,
we have verified nwolves have killed
661 head of cattle nin the state.
nLast year, it was 46.
Something that's not ntalked about
nbut is very important
are these nnon-depredation impacts
that wolves can have non livestock production.
And, you know, Mr. Link nhit the nail on the head.
The instance-- nin 2015,
there was an incident non that particular property
where we didn't have ngood abatement strategies,
nand the best solution was
just to move the cattle noff of the--
noff of that pasture.
And, to me, nwhen that is the solution,
nthe program has failed,
because we weren't able to resolve that conflict
using just nonlethal techniques.
We need to have an integrated approach
to resolving livestock depredations from wolves.
But some of these non-predation-related impacts
that wolves have had on livestock production
includes weight loss.
That Ramler et al. 2014 paper
is a scientific peer-reviewed paper
that looked at ranches in Montana
and compared feeder calf weights at the end of the season
on farms that had wolf depredations
and on farms that didn't have wolf depredations,
and those farms that had wolf depredations,
their calf weights were 26 pounds lighter
than the ranches without depredations,
and, you know, that year,
if you look at, you know, 26 pounds per calf
at a couple of bucks a pound,
that adds up to real money really quick.
I mean, and these are impacts that aren't compensated for.
Increased cattle vigilance, that Kluever paper,
looked at cow-calf herds in the Southwest,
in Arizona and New Mexico, that were exposed
to the Mexican gray wolf,
and those animals... [clears throat]
Those animals on those allotments
that had the presence of wolves
spent more time looking for--
presumably for predators
than herds that didn't have wolves on the allotment.
Meaning, they spent more time grazing,
putting weight on.
I mean, that's the goal of cow-calf production.
Cattle-- very difficult to handle,
that have been hunted nby wolves.
Cattle have been stampeded nthrough fences.
There's the potential nof a disease transmitted
between wolves-- nother canids.
Coyotes, farm dogs, nfoxes, and wolves
can transmit Neospora caninum,
which can result nin the cow aborting a fetus.
nUm, fence damage,
and time spent nsearching for depredations.
You know, these are some of these secondary impacts
that folks like you can have
when wolves start hunting livestock on your farm.
nSo some nonlethal concepts.
Disruptive stimuli-- nthis is, you know,
an undesirable stimuli nto prevent or alter
nthe behavior of an animal,
nto try to frighten it away.
nAversive stimuli--
stimuli that cause ndiscomfort or pain
that's paired nwith a specific behavior.
When we talk nabout nonlethal concepts,
these are kind of nthe two boxes that we look at
when we're trying nto prevent wolves
nfrom killing livestock.
And some of those ntechniques are fladry--
and we'll go over these nwhen we go out to--
when we go out nto the Radzak farm.
Fladry, nrandomly activated lights,
electronic guards, nradio-activated guards,
nand scare wires.
nThe image on the left,
that's a scare wire non a cow-calf operation.
It's placed between the ground nand the bottom barbed wired,
nand it's electrified
with 12-volt fencers, nsolar Parmak fencers,
nor some other fencers.
nFairly high voltage.
It's a technique nthat we're using
on a particular farm nthat has
a huge history nof wolf conflicts
to prevent wolves nfrom accessing pastures.
nThe image on the right,
that's some of our staff ninstalling fladry
non a farm in Douglas County
that had wolf depredations nin 2015.
In 2015, we had 17 major nnonlethal projects.
We installed 16-- nalmost 16 1/2 miles of fladry.
We put these nradio-activated guards--
and you'll see these nthis afternoon--
out on three different nproperties,
installed over six miles nof electrified poly-tape,
nused electronic guards
and various livestock husbandry nrecommendations.
You know, and some nanimal husbandry practices
that might help prevent nwolf depredations--
you know, changing pastures, nnight penning,
changing birthing dates, nand fencing.
Some other nnonlethal approaches
that have been used nin the past
has been actually nthe sterilization of wolves.
They felt nif they weren't breeding
and they weren't raising pups,
the energy demands of the pack would be suppressed,
and therefore they wouldn't depredate livestock.
It wasn't proven scientifically with wolves,
but it was a technique used in Utah
with coyotes, where they were able
to actually reduce rates of predation on lambs
from sterilized coyote pairs.
Translocation of problem wolves--
that was a technique we used prior to 2003.
There was 33 different wolves
that were caught from farms
that were suffering depredations from wolves,
and we moved these long distances
and released them.
It didn't prove to be a very successful technique
because the majority of these animals died
within the first six months of them being released,
but what it did do is, it stimulated nine county boards
to pass resolutions not wanting us or the--
or the state of Wisconsin
releasing wolves in those counties.
So it-- it was a unpopular technique.
- [chuckles] Yeah.
- That's an image of a radio-activated guard.
It's got a strobe light nand some sirens,
and it's activated nby the presence
nof a radio-collared wolf.
So it's more nof an interactive tool.
nIt's not going off all night.
We know if the stimuli
is going off repeatedly and consistently,
animals will habituate to that fairly quickly.
But this is-- it's an interaction--
it's an interaction based on proximity
between wolves and this box from its radio collar
where it sends a signal, and it activates the device.
Potentially, calving nearer buildings
might be something--
a recommendation nthat you might consider.
It doesn't prove nto be 100% effective.
We've had wolves kill livestock nvery near buildings,
so to say nthat this is foolproof
nwould be inaccurate,
but it's something nthat you might consider.
And Mike will talk nmore specifically
nabout guarding animals.
You know, nI've talked about
the importance of having nan integrated approach
nto resolving wolf conflicts.
nAnd right now,
with the federal classification nof wolves
nas federally endangered,
we can only try to prevent depredations
for folks like you using nonlethal abatement techniques.
And this is a scenario that happened in 2010
in Douglas and Bayfield County.
This is-- that black line represents
the summer territory of a wolf
that Eric had radio-collared
in an attempt to use
a radio-activated guard,
and I'll just walk you through nwhat happens.
And so the green represents nforested cover.
The beige is-- is some type nof agriculture,
and the blue's nself-explanatory;
in the top of the screen nis Lake Superior.
So on May 10th, nwe had wolves kill a calf.
You know, we applied nsome nonlethal technique
nto try to abate that situation,
try to prevent wolves nfrom killing other calves.
Well, it worked there nfor a few weeks,
but over on a neighboring farm, nthey killed a calf.
So we applied some nonlethal nabatement there.
It's fladry, flashing lights, nor electronic guards.
nAnd then on the 15th of July,
we had a farmer report nwolves harassing livestock.
We verified that, so we did nproactive nonlethal abatement
trying to prevent nany depredations
nand these secondary effects
that wolves might pose non a particular farm.
nSo on the second of August,
nthey depredated livestock
on the north edge nof the summer territory,
so we applied nnonlethal abatement there.
nAnd then on 8/19,
they actually depredated nlivestock on the farm
where we had already applied nthis nonlethal abatement,
so that didn't prove nto be successful.
nAnd then in September,
another depredation non an adjacent farm,
another one na couple of days later.
n[stammers]
At this point, we're trying neverything that we can try.
This is-- nthis is the era
when wolves nare federally lifted,
and we don't have nthe authority to remove them,
nso...
Another depredation occurs non the 30th of September,
the 10th of Oct-- nor the 11th of October,
nthe 30th of October.
Without the authority
and the ability to have an integrated approach,
that's not successful wolf management.
Spreading the problem
from one producer to another isn't successful.
And at that point, those animals had become so habituated
to these nonlethal techniques
that none of them were being successful.
And I would argue, if you want to talk
about wolf conservation
and these conservation strategies,
that-- that pack of wolves did nothing to support
wolf recovery and wolf conservation
when everybody in the community is having problems with them.
Eric, would you like to add anything
to that experience? - No.
[laughter]
- It was a difficult summer.
- How many of those wolves died accidentally?
- [laughs]
- Pardon me? [laughter]
- How many of those wolves died accidentally?
- Uh, I don't know. - Do you refuse to answer?
- I forget-- that was W-757, and I think--
maybe that winter, it went off of the air.
I forget what happened to it.
But that is-- that is a real-life example.
I think that's a fairly compelling story that--
that trying to resolve these conflicts
with nonlethal abatement strategies--
although, we can select a farm-- maybe it's a single farm.
It's isolated. It's relatively small.
We can stop wolf depredations to livestock
with these nonlethal tools relatively efficiently,
but there are these scenarios that occur
where nothing in the realm of nonlethal is practical.
In northern Wisconsin,
we conduct tribal co-investigations
of wolf complaints.
The Menominee, nStockbridge-Munsee,
nand the Ojibwe nations
value, nculturally and spiritually,
nwolves very highly.
If we have a depredation nwithin six miles
of tribal lands-- nof these tribal lands,
we will co-investigate nthe complaint
nwith the tribal biologist.
nSo we do an on the ground--
boots-on-the-ground evaluation nof the conflict.
So if we're starting to talk nabout abatement strategies,
we have the tribal biologist non board,
nso when we start talking--
potentially, given the era nin which we're at,
whether it's federally delisted nor listed,
they can be part nof the determination
as to what we're going to do nto resolve that issue.
We had talked about ncarcass disposal,
nproper carcass--
proper carcass disposal ntechniques.
The-- nthe image on the left,
that's an nimproperly disposed of cow,
and those tracks coming into it nare wolf tracks.
That could probably npredispose you
to wolf predation, nwhen you start
to calve on those pastures nin the spring.
It's-- it's a very important topic,
and it's a very difficult issue to deal with
that you folks have to deal with in the winter months.
Just a time frame of this on again/off again
federal status of wolves nin Wisconsin.
nYou've seen that earlier.
Wolves captured and killed nfor depredation management
by USDA Wildlife Services nand the Wisconsin DNR
nfrom 1974 to 2015.
There's been n397 wolves captured
nfor conflict management,
nand 335 of those animals
nwere euthanized.
nAn integrated site-specific
wolf depredation management nprogram
has nothing to do with population level control.
It is not our objective to have any impact
on the overall statewide wolf population.
It is to resolve your conflict,
not to reduce the wolf population.
Generally speaking,
when we have a year of full lethal control,
we will remove between 5% and 10%
of that minimum estimated wolf population
from the previous winter.
I would like to also add to this
that site-specific lethal control
for wolf conflict abatement has had nothing to do--
or has had no negative impact
on wolf recovery in the state of Wisconsin.
You folks saw this image earlier.
nI mean, what it speaks to is,
those years nwhen we had the authority
to lethally remove wolves nin 2002 through 2008
and then nin '12, '13, and '14,
nyou can obviously see that
the population growth line nis increasing
while we had the authority nto lethally remove animals.
nSome weird wolf conflicts,
you know, some nnon-predation-related things.
This is a silage bag nin Marinette County
that a pair of wolves nhad ran up the side of,
and their nails had punctured nthat silage bag.
And you can see where nthe farmer had taped the bag.
And you all know nwhat that means to you,
when you have na punctured silage bag.
You know, these are right near the barnyard.
Just-- just some non-livestock-related
wolf incidences that--
that do-- that do occur.
Um, you know, so when we go back to 1908,
that first scientifically...
I wouldn't call it npeer-reviewed
but an effort nto demonstrate
predator management tools nback in 1908,
nto today, in 2014,
we still have scientists nthat work both
for our agency nand other agencies
that are trying to develop nthese tools and techniques
to prevent nlarge carnivores--
grizzly bears, nblack bears, cougars,
wolves, and coyotes-- nfrom depredating livestock,
so there is still effort out there, folks,
that people are spending a fair amount of time on
trying to develop techniques to resolve these conflicts.
And this 2014 just represents another one of those efforts.
Dr. John Shivik has devoted a lot of his career
to investigating techniques
to prevent livestock depredations.
I know that's very quick. It's a lot of information.
We could talk about this topic for a very long time,
but we can go over some of the stuff at the field day
with Eric, but at this point,
before I open it up to questions,
on the back are some magnets,
and if you want, grab one of those.
Those have our 1-800 hotline numbers on them.
And so if you suspect that you have
a wolf or a bear depredation,
it'd be nice for you to have that on your refrigerator
so you know the number to call.
We monitor those numbers
seven days a week, 365 days a year.
If it's a holiday or a weekend, there's someone assigned
to call in and check voice mail every couple of hours
to see if we've received a wolf or a bear complaint.
So it's 365-day-a-year service.
So grab one of those on your way out.
And some of the packages-- packets that you got
on your way in, they just contain
a lot of information about our agency and program,
not only about bears and wolves but some of
the other stuff we do that might be useful for you.
So I encourage you to grab one of those
and take it home.
So at that, I've got a little bit of time,
if there's any questions.
[applause]