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Comment by dmitryminkovsky | Hacker News Reader

So much for anyone trying to raise sheep or cattle. They did this in parts of England, and if you follow sheep farmers on Twitter, the gore was tremendous. Guard dogs can handle foxes, even coyotes, but not wolves. But hey, I guess we’re not supposed to eat meat anymore?

Also, this site just autoplays the segment? :(

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Yeah, man, so much for them. Just like "so much for the lumberjacks, they can't cut down a sequoia". Sometimes the cost someone imposes on the rest of us is too much.

> So much for anyone trying to raise sheep or cattle. They did this parts of England, and if you follow sheep farmers on Twitter, the gore was tremendous.

What if the flock was protected by a pack of large herding dogs, like German Shepards?

Edit: Apparently guardian dogs defend from wolves. Herding is a different job. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock_guardian_dog.

German Shepherds are nothing for wolves, according to some searches I did along this same line of thinking a while ago.

What about this?

https://youtu.be/x4eImh13-ow?t=1072

It appears to be a Georgian documentary, and they describe a Caucasian sheepdog as being larger and stronger than the local wolves.

When I try to Google this topic, I'm mainly getting junk about some speech from American Sniper.

Can’t play this video now, but would be neat. No idea. Just seems unlikely. Wolves are master collaborative hunters. Dogs are... dogs. But I’m no dog vs wolf expert.

Watching the video a little further, it describes a time in the early 90s when the Caucasian sheepdogs were nearly extinct, "poorly bred," and "food for wolves." It looks like there was a breeding project to make them fit for purpose again.

It also looks like the dogs have to stick to the right tactics and have limitations. The dogs stay put in defensive positions and defend the flock as a pack. They'll kill a wolf that gets too close, but they usually just chase them away. They can't chase too far or go out individually or they risk being killed by wolves. They're also more effective when the weather is such that they can use their sense of smell.

Edit: I posted this upthread, but apparently guardian dog is the term for dogs defend against predators (but they do not control its movement), herding dogs control the movement of a herd (but do not typically defend it well).

Edit this is interesting: https://www.facebook.com/notes/cinco-deseos-ranch-livestock-...

My dad used to spend summers in Armenian country side where his grandparents had livestock. They had a pair of Armenian Gamprs as guard dogs. According to his anecdotal evidence a single Gampr would get torn to bits by a pack of wolves but 2 of them would often keep a pack away and were even used in wolf hunts. These are some giant and vicious dogs though. I think they're much larger than shepherds.

Umm, a German shepherd isn't a good choice, but there are a lot of dog breeds made specifically to hunt wolves. The Irish Wolfhound comes to mind.

I wonder if these would work?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boerboel

My old neighbor had one, and prior to meeting him I had heard from others the he owned a 'bear'. One of the biggest dogs I've ever seen, and all muscle.

Or a llama -> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard_llama

Donkeys work too.

I've seen one pick up a coyote with it's mouth and break its neck, they are crazy territorial and mean.

It's not about not eating meat, diet has nothing to do with this question. Who are we to enter an ecosystem and kill/exterminate its inhabitants just so we can do whatever we want there? Why must we bow down to an extremely small number of cattle farmers so that our entire ecosystem is skewed away from its natural state?

> Who are we to enter an ecosystem and kill/exterminate its inhabitants just so we can do whatever we want there?

What did we do where you live?

So you're all for hosting a pack in your Suburban/Urban neighborhood?

All of this country used to be wilderness, including what are now cities.

And there's a lot less of the wilderness left in the cities than on ranches.

Umm what? I am pretty sure nobody has reintroduced wolves to England, when was this?

Rangeland sheep or cattle on public land is a pretty small percentage of total meat production.

What always gets my goat in particular is ranchers pay $1.35/head/month to graze their cattle on public land.

At that price, which is about 5% of the market rate to graze on private land, I don't feel like we the public owe the ranchers particularly much.

There are breeds of dog that are larger than wolves and were bred specifically for the purpose of protecting herds of livestock from wolves and other such large predators. They're not necessarily cheap to own though, and a fair number are needed to protect against packs.

Why can't electrified fences keep them out?

Wolves are hungry and livestock is easy pickings. Grazing requires tons of labs. They find out ways around. Hackers.

They have found that small strobe lights mounted along fence lines work reasonably well. The lights are solar powered and free to ranchers... Oddly the ranchers that keep having run ins with wolf packs activity refuse to use any deterrents whatsoever. It would appear, here in Washington, that the ranchers don't care about their livestock at all, they actively refuse to protect them until there are issues then they get the state to spend a $100k on a helicopter based hunt. They won't take any free help, not employer range riders, very irresponsible.

At this one the ranchers using public lands are nothing but a lazy welfare case from my point of view.

Wolves do not live where livestock live in Colorado.

There is very little overlap in area.

Also, cheap meat is not a good reason to eradicate a species from an ecosystem.

Hunters and ranchers benefit from having no wolves around, but everyone else takes a hit as a result. There's a lot of costs related to deer damaging crops, and managing all the hunting required to keep the population down.

Besides, you can just run a compensation program to offset the damages. If you scroll down in the article you'll notice they already have an estimate for that.

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