Wolf Depredation
1. Introduction
Wolves play on the negative emotions of people more than most other animals. A primary reason for this is the wolf's reputation throughout the northern hemisphere as a livestock killer: it is widely assumed that wolves are necessarily destructive of livestock and are an important cause of livestock loss.
It is commonly held that wolves kill all kinds of domestic animals. Wolves are, after all, large predators and people fill the countryside with almost countless domestic stock which might appeal to wolves. Indeed, cattle and sheep are the most wolf-depredated livestock. Not only are they the most abundant livestock in the countryside but, in regions of non-traditional farming, they are often allowed to graze far and wide virtually unshepherded and thus unprotected.
Far fewer pigs, goats, horses and fowl are taken by wolves, they are relatively scarcer than sheep and cattle, and fowl tend to be confined. In addition to these animals, wolves might prey on deer enclosed as game on estates if they can get in among them and wolves sometimes kill dogs they encounter.
But how much of the wolf's reputation for killing livestock is deserved? How inevitable is it that livestock are targeted by wolves? Do wolves usually kill livestock and lots of them? What does research on wolf depredation have to say?
Wolf Research
Scientific research in the last few years has begun to scrutinise wolf depredation to understand its causes and suggest effective ways to reduce it. A lot of research comes from the US in response to the expanding wolf population in Minnesota, where most wolves live in the US outside Alaska. Although few studies on wolf depredation have as yet been carried out, nevertheless, their findings so far are clear and surprising.
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