Implementing Successful Non-Lethal Predator Deterrent Methods in Marin County Center photo: Camilla Fox and sheep rancher discuss fencing techniques to deter predators.

Camilla Fox completed her Master’s thesis and degree in environmental studies, with a concentration in wildlife ecology, policy and conservation from Prescott College. Her thesis research focused on a comparative analysis of a county-run non-lethal livestock and wildlife protection program in Marin County, Calif. to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Wildlife Services’ livestock protection program. Marin County, like many counties throughout the western United States, contracted with Wildlife Services to carry out predator control, largely for the benefit of private ranchers.

Public controversy over the use of the potent metabolic poison Compound 1080, leghold traps, and other lethal methods employed by Wildlife Services to control native predators deemed a threat to area livestock led to the county board of supervisors voting to cease contracting with the federal agency in 2000. In place of the Wildlife Services program, the Board of Supervisors approved an alternative pilot program known as the Marin County Strategic Plan for Protection of Livestock and Wildlife, designed to assist ranchers with implementation of non-lethal predator deterrent methods.

A county indemnification program was added to the plan to compensate qualified ranchers for verified livestock losses resulting from predation. According to the Marin County Department of Agriculture, as of 2007, more than 89 percent of Marin’s 7,500 sheep were covered under the program, and almost all commercially viable sheep ranchers participate in the program.

Fox’s study compared the former Wildlife Services program to the new Marin County plan, with regard to rancher satisfaction and preferences, lethality to predators, livestock losses, use of non-lethal predator deterrent techniques, and costs. Her study, which was conducted through a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods, including a comprehensive survey of ranchers who participate in the Marin program, showed that the non-lethal cost-share program has support from a majority of participating ranchers; is preferred over the USDA Wildlife Service’s traditional predator management program by a majority of participating ranchers; has helped to reduce livestock losses; has resulted in an increase in the use of non-lethal predation deterrent methods by a majority of participating ranchers; has likely reduced the total number of predators killed to protect livestock; and has reduced the spectrum of species of predators killed to protect livestock.

This innovative plan sets a precedent for meeting a wider compass of community needs and values where both agriculture and protection of wildlife are deemed important by the community. Marin County Agricultural Commissioner Stacy Carlsen, who oversees implementation of the non-lethal cost-share program, explained in an article from a recent issue of Bay Nature magazine, “For the first couple of years we couldn’t tell if the [loss] reductions were a trend or a blip. Now, we can say there’s a pattern….In a few years we’ll be a model without anyone questioning our success.”

Camilla, who now serves as a wildlife consultant for the AWI, aims to publish and present the findings of her study over the course of the next year.