These are the results of the report “Attacks by wolves on livestock – effectiveness of management measures” published on Wednesday. Launched in January 2020 by the national agricultural advisory center Agridea and the Kora Foundation for Predator Ecology and Wildlife Management, the joint study was financially supported by the Federal Office for the Environment.
Data on wolf presence, wolf kills, number of livestock killed, range of livestock and wild animals, pastures and grazing systems used and livestock protection measures applied from 2004 to 2019 were analyzed and processed.
The final report states that in most of the small livestock summering areas in the wolf area, there was no damage to livestock even during years when wolf presence was present. Only a few summering areas were badly affected in one or more years. They are referred to as “hotspot willows”.
According to model calculations, damage was most likely to occur on large Alps in rugged terrain and in places where many sheep have been summering for a long time. In addition, livestock attacks were more likely in areas with transient lone wolves than in areas with resident lone wolves.
Certain wolf individuals killed more livestock than others. Around half of the solitary wolves caused little or no damage in the summering areas. When damage occurred, the extent of damage was higher in pairs of wolves than in resident solitary wolves.
Generalized linear mixed models showed that significantly fewer livestock were killed during wolf attacks when livestock guard dogs were in action. However, damage could not be completely avoided. However, the study finds that livestock guardian dogs are less efficient in very rugged summering areas with a high proportion of forest.
The study also compared the number of livestock killed in wolf dens with a shooting permit in the year the permit was issued and the year after. It was shown that the shooting of harmful lone wolves was an effective short- to medium-term measure to reduce livestock mauling. Affected areas remained free of wolves for a long time after being killed.
To assess how effective removing pups from wolf packs is on longer-term damage evolution, the analysis would need to be repeated in years to come, the report notes. To do this, however, all interventions in wolf packs would have to be carefully documented.
As the study states, there are “rather few robust studies” on the efficiency of herd protection measures in Europe. According to these, the use of correctly installed electric fences has proven to be the best.
However, the effectiveness of electric fences could not be examined in the study. A comparison of the agricultural data from the Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG) with the cantonal summer pasture perimeters and a more systematic documentation of the use of electrified fences are urgently needed for further studies, it is said.