Drones as a potential hazing tool to prevent wolf depredations on livestock

Abstract

With wolf recolonization and reintroduction into parts of their historic range in the United States, wolves killing livestock (depredation) has become an ever-growing concern for livestock producers. This is compounded in areas where wolves remain protected under the Endangered Species Act, like southwestern Oregon, which limits management actions to non-lethal techniques only. Located in the Klamath Basin area in southwestern Oregon, wolves in this area have been chronic depredators since 2016. After years of wolves habituating to other non-lethal methods, USDA APHIS Wildlife Services personnel used small, unmanned aircraft systems (drones) in 2022 as a new addition to their ‘night watch’ efforts. These drones were used to both detect wolves in and around livestock and to haze wolves away from livestock. Livestock depredations went from 11 cattle killed in 20 days (0.55 depredations/night) down to two over 85 days (0.024 depredations/night) post drone introduction. Further experimentation is required to evaluate the hazing effectiveness, cost, applicability to other areas, habituation time, and long-term benefits, but initial results are promising.

Keywords

• Drones
• Hazing
• Wolves
• Cattle
• Livestock depredation
• Human-wildlife conflict