GVI
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wildlife and people come in conflict
generally in ways that have to do with
people moving into wildlife habitat and
the animals are still there most of what
we deal with in the southwest is
conflict between Mexican wolves and
cattle Mexicans don't eat a lot of
cattle but if they're your cattle it
makes a difference the area that I work
in we have seen us as a rising problem
with bears it has occurred for quite a
long time but the number of bears in
some areas very thankfully has risen but
along with that there has been a rise in
the number of complex situations
typically wildlife will pass through an
area and not come into conflict with
people unless there are things called
attractant so its food its garbage its
other things that either an animal finds
and they're curious about or it's
actually a source of food that's easier
than their own food the animals aren't
the problem generally because they're
behaving as they always have it's humans
either knowing or unknowingly creating
the nuisance in the past the conflicts
between humans and Wildlife generally
came out with the humans ridding as much
of the wildlife that they considered to
be vermin or problems as I could so it
was generally a matter of wildlife
losing out take some of our most
spectacular predators wolves and grizzly
bears when the West was developing
wolves and grizzly bears were varmints
are considered predators on a growing
economic way of life and so they were
just eliminated the biggest problem with
Rizzo
and complex by lethal control particular
with predators is you eliminate one of
the most important animals on the
landscape so top predators like wolves
are a very important player in the
natural system and they you know the
science is increasingly showing just how
important they are everything that keeps
nature and balance comes from the top
down there's this whole explosion of
life it all has to do with the fact that
you put these top predators back just
all by themselves you bring the posers
back and you get healthy landscapes for
example when they feed on whatever they
are preying on they don't fully eat that
item and by leaving part of that animal
behind it provides food for other
animals in that ecosystem so when you
remove them from the ecosystem it really
has a very comprehensive impact on the
whole system and it's never for the good
for about 15 years defenders of wildlife
has been promoting a better approach to
managing wildlife conflicts which is
non-lethal strategies to reduce and
eliminate those conflicts to keep
predators on even landscapes where there
is agriculture and ranching going on
because it's a significant portion of
the landscape the way that defenders is
approaching this whole issue is to try
and assist people and try and bring
peaceful coexistence so to speak to a
region there are a number of ways in
which defenders approaches this
everything from bringing information to
people about how to take care of their
property in a way that doesn't attract
wildlife there are also matters of
trying to help with funding a good
example of our coexistence work is our
wood river project in central south
central Idaho
at any given time there were up to four
wolf packs that could be in this area
the wolves are in an area where there's
also livestock some of the largest sheep
operations in the state and wolves kill
more sheep than they do any other type
of livestock so we pick the hardest
place basically our view about wolves
was that certainly they present some
challenges for our operation our sheep
operation but we also recognize that
wolves are an important part of a fully
functioning ecosystem and so when we
first found that we had lost sheep to
wolves our first instinct was well what
is a way that we're going to be able to
coexist with these animals with wolves
some of the main tools include fencing
loud noises guard dogs human presence
flattery which is basically rope with
red flags tied to it the flapping of the
flags that deterrent to wolves so far
this year we've only lost one sheep out
of 10,000 over the three years of this
project now we've lost less than two
dozen sheep so we've done a good job
we've been able to prove that wolves can
live with livestock
we're happy with the project because the
ranchers are happy with the project and
when they believe that they can live
with Wolves then we've really achieved
our goal defenders of wildlife has been
in the wildlife business for 65 years
now and we've learned that we all do
better when we look at long-term
conservation outcomes and that we look
to solve the challenges versus decide
who's going to win and who's going to
lose by acknowledging the conflicts and
working to reduce the challenges and to
increase social tolerance for wolves or
social tolerance for migrating species
grizzly bears is a win-win way of
addressing the needs of society and the
needs of nature the goal is going to be
for us to make sure that people who see
coexistence tools and how they work are
able to share what they learn with other
communities and I think positive
word-of-mouth will allow us to do more
of it well I think it's necessary for
humans and Wildlife to coexist and
that's one of the main reasons why we
wanted to move back to western Montana
is because of the natural setting and
the wildlife that are so abundant in the
region we've done the barrier fence
around about half of our land but we
have great habitat just outside the
fence that we want to keep it in natural
setting specifically for the wildlife
because they're very important to the
ecosystem and to our way of life here if
we're proactive about land management I
think
coexist in these natural settings nicely
ultimately what we're looking for is to
have wildlife populations that are in
their natural habitat and living out the
lives that are appropriate for them
eating their wild foods raising their
young in enough area that they survive
well into the future and that people
also can be living out their lives
feeling safe and also appreciating the
wildlife around them
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