Five Finger Death Punch<\/a> ‘s cover of \u201cBlue on Black,\u201d which might blast the lyric \u201cYou turned and you ran\u201d as the wolves flee.<\/p>\nUSDA drone pilots have continued cattle protection patrols this summer while researching wolf responses at ranches with high conflict levels along the Oregon-California border. Patrols extended south to the Sierra Valley in August for the first time, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear whether the wolves might become accustomed to the drones. Herders and wolf hunters in Europe have long deterred them with long lines hung with flapping cloth, but the wolves can eventually learn that the flags are not a threat.<\/p>\n
Environmental advocates are optimistic about drones, though, because they allow for scaring wolves in different ways, in different places.<\/p>\n
\u201cWolves are frightened of novel things,\u201d said Amaroq Weiss, a wolf advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. \u201cI know that in the human imagination, people think of wolves as big, scary critters that are scared of nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are also drawbacks to the technology. A drone with night vision and a loudspeaker costs around $20,000, requires professional training and doesn’t work well in wooded areas, making it impractical for many ranchers.<\/p>\n
Ranchers in Northern California who have hosted USDA drone patrols agree that they have reduced livestock deaths so far.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very appreciative of what they did. But I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a long-term solution,\u201d said Mary Rickert, the owner of a cattle ranch north of Mount Shasta. \u201cWhat I\u2019m afraid of is that after some period of time, that all of a sudden they go, \u2018Wow, this isn\u2019t going to hurt me. It just makes a lot of noise.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Ranchers are compensated if they can prove that a wolf killed their livestock. But there are uncompensated costs of having stressed-out cows, such as lower birth rates and tougher meat.<\/p>\n
Rickert said if the drones don’t work over the long term, she might have to close the business, which she’s been involved in since at least the 1980s. She wants permission to shoot wolves if they’re attacking her animals or if they come onto her property after a certain number of attacks.<\/p>\n
If the technology proves effective and costs come down, someday ranchers might merely have to ask the wolves to go away.<\/p>\n
Oregon-based Paul Wolf \u2014 yes, Wolf \u2014 is the USDA’s southwest district supervisor and the main Five Finger Death Punch fan among the drone pilots. He recalled an early encounter during which a wolf at first merely seemed curious at the sight of a drone, until the pilot talked to it through the speaker. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018Hey wolf \u2014 get out of here,\u2019\u201d Wolf said. \u201cThe wolf immediately lets go of the cattle and runs away.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For millennia humans have tried to scare wolves away from their livestock. Most of them didn\u2019t have drones.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[78471,1147,966,28,1685,16777,88,793,79,99,795,201,24430,1529],"class_list":{"0":"post-122469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-78471","9":"tag-animals","10":"tag-article","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-climate-and-environment","13":"tag-drones","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-u-s-news","19":"tag-wildlife","20":"tag-wolves","21":"tag-zoology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}