MISSOULA, Mont. — A study by Utah State University research professor Julie Young, Ph.D., in collaboration with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks bear biologist Wesley Sarmento found livestock guardian dogs could be effective at deterring grizzly bears.
Sarmento was struggling to figure out what to do about bears coming into farmsteads, so he reached out to Young.
“I’d worked on livestock guardian dogs before with sheep ranchers in Montana and elsewhere, and so we thought this might be a good solution,” Young said.
The study installed dogs on farmsteads in north-central Montana with a history of grizzly bear encounters and compared them with nearby farmsteads with similar amounts of grain spillage.
They then compared the farms using camera traps and GPS collar locations of grizzly bears and the dogs.
“The dogs basically created this imaginary fence around the property that the bears were unwilling to cross,” Young said.
The study found only five GPS locations of bears were within 300 meters of treatment farmsteads after the dogs were placed, which was an 87.8% reduction.
There was also a 94.1% reduction in grizzly’s total time spent on the farmstead, which suggests bears not only visited less frequently, but also for less time.
It is noted that collared bears were monitored during different periods of time throughout the study.
Dogs were selected from over 30 breeds of livestock guardian dogs around the world, with size as a key factor.
Once the dogs were installed, smaller mammals such as racoons, foxes and skunks were spotted on cams more frequently at treatment farms.
“Which means that they might also feel more comfortable when there’s not grizzly bears,” Young said.
Afterward, farmers were asked a series of questions in a survey ranging from 1 strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree.
Farmers rated “my LGD is timid towards grizzly bears” as 1.50 on the scale, meaning farmers strongly disagreed that their dogs were timid toward grizzly bears.
When asked if their LGD is aggressive toward grizzly bears, farmers submitted a 4.50 average rating, and when asked if their LGD chases other predators than grizzly bears, farmers gave a 4.25 average rating.
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