The USDA has awarded a $100,000 grant to the nonprofit Western Landowners Alliance to test new non-lethal tools ranchers can use to protect their livestock from wolves.

Funding comes from the Natural Resources Conservation Service through its Conservation Innovation Grants program, which supports the development of new management strategies to improve natural resource conservation on private lands.

The alliance will work with four ranchers and three county wolf committees in Oregon, evaluating different approaches to minimize wolf-livestock conflicts — including range riders, high-tech cameras and composting dead animal carcasses.

“My goal, or my biggest hope, is that this project is going to help working lands remain viable,” said Ellie Gage, who is administering the NRCS grant. “The deck is already stacked against these producers.” 

Gage and her husband, Mark, ranch in Central Oregon, where they run a small herd of cattle near Prineville and Powell Butte. She is also chairwoman of the Crook County wolf committee.

For the last several years, Gage said she has been involved in the alliance, participating in the group’s Women in Ranching program. In May, she was asked to do outreach for the NRCS grant proposal, recruiting partners interested in studying non-lethal deterrents.

“The response was really overwhelming,” she said.

Four livestock producers signed up — two in Wallowa County, one in Baker County and one in southwest Oregon.

Wolf committees in Wallowa, Baker and Grant counties agreed to collaborate, as well as Prairie City in Grant County, which has a site for composting roadkill and dead livestock.

The grant was awarded July 15, and will reimburse ranchers for half their costs as they implement non-lethal methods aimed at keeping wolves away from sheep and cattle.

Gage said two producers will experiment with high-frequency radio ear tags on their cattle. The idea is that will allow range riders to locate herds more quickly and efficiently in large pastures, lowering costs and maintaining a more consistent human presence among herds to scare off wolves.

“Some of these allotments might be several thousand acres,” Gage said. “If you can spend less time looking for your cows, and locate them quickly with the help of ear tags, then you can get to them … more efficiently.”

Another piece of technology that Gage said she is excited to try is a new game camera being developed with artificial intelligence that can be programmed to identify specific animals and notify producers.

“There is a huge need for the producer to have real-time information on where the predators are, and when they are there,” she said. “They can go and incorporate their non-lethal tools and human presence when they need to be there. Hopefully, it will make non-lethal tools that much more effective.” 

In Prairie City, Gage said composting dead livestock may prove to be an effective technique for ridding ranches of carcasses that might otherwise attract wolves.

“If we can minimize those attractants, everybody wins,” she said. 

The NRCS grant is meant to build on similar livestock-predator conflict prevention work the alliance is undertaking in other states, including Washington, Idaho, Montana, California, New Mexico and Arizona. 

By proving which tools are most effective in different areas and terrain, Gage said it could lead to a more permanent source of funding to assist ranchers.

“The end goal of this project is to provide durable funding for producers who are facing the challenges of sharing working lands with wildlife,” she said. “The work that they’re putting into preventing conflict with their livestock is not sustainable financially.”