Description of the interviewees
The size of the farms and the herds for which the participants are responsible varies considerably: from a few dozen to a thousand animals, including sheep, goats or cattle. Some keep their animals on open pastures, some on large enclosures, some stay with their animals the whole time and some just check on them once a day. Half of the participants already use electric fences for livestock protection, a few have LGD or practice direct surveillance. In the Italian study area, all informants chose to get the dogs after episodes of predation on their livestock, while in the other countries they got the dogs as a protection measure even if they didn’t suffer damages from wolves. Additionally, participants come from diverse backgrounds: some of them have a professional formation in agriculture and livestock husbandry, while others got their training directly by working in the field.
Despite these different backgrounds, the opinions and perceptions about the future of shepherding and the problems related to their professional life are mostly overlapping. Interviews made it clear to us, that damages from large carnivores are usually not the most compelling problem for shepherds and livestock farmers. Most of them recognize the wolf mainly as the last straw that breaks the camel’s back in an already difficult working situation. Nevertheless, the answers collected show that the informants have also heterogeneous opinions and attitudes about LPM, wolves and their presence in their working area. In general, one of the most recurrent topics is the bureaucracy. The time required to deal with administrative issues and legal regulations put the participants in serious difficulty and sometimes discourage them from applying for contributions or participation in calls for rural development plans. Some of the informants say that it would be necessary to hire a person to take care of this time-consuming part of their work as both operating with livestock and dealing with administrative procedures is not feasible for a one-man business: “You don't know how crazy they drive me here to submit all the documents, and there's always something. And in addition to keep my documents in order I also have to run to fix all the messes of the other breeders, because if they have wrong documents, they lose the income support.”
Moreover, some rules seem too rigid and not flexible enough for the daily life and work of livestock farmers. In Trentino, for example, a farmer criticizes the rigid dates for bringing animals on the summer pastures in spring and back to the home farm in autumn. Grazing on summer pastures before and after this period is not considered in funding and income support.
Knowledge creation: Make your Hands dirty and trust your Peers
Participants state that the key source of professional knowledge is the hands-on work through direct contact with the animals and the confrontation with the natural, often hash conditions on site. Some respondents have an agricultural or pastoral education, but experience, time spent in the field, and with the animals are always considered the most important source of knowledge. Often, ‘common sense’ is mentioned as one of the fundamental aspects of animal management, implying that the application of personal experience to different situations is a common practice, besides formal knowledge. Two informants refer to unwritten rules that can neither be found in books nor lectures: “And you can never get that from a textbook or anything else. It can only be done if you talk to people on the ground, once with this, once with that and with that. People with experience.”
Direct experience means not only the hands-on work or the trial and error in finding solutions, but also an almost meditative engagement with the animals and the territory: the shepherds observe their animals and touch them, listen to their movements through the sound of their bells, some of them smell and taste the grass, feel the ground: “Q: From whom did you learn all these things about dogs and fences? A: In the field, when I got the first dogs [...] I had to spend a lot of time and effort with them.”
One of the farmers states that “there is no such thing as a shepherd to know the territory”. Direct experience and contact with the territory are also fundamental elements in attributing reliability to people. During the interviews, informants were asked which people they trust when they need information or knowledge related for example to working dogs, fences, livestock health, or the presence of large carnivores in their territory. The majority of informants declare that they turn to colleagues they know personally and whose work they are familiar with: “Q: If you need some information, do you have somebody to ask? A: I have a daily confrontation with other shepherds.”
Other people active in the field can also be considered reliable: hunters, rangers, sometimes project technicians. In these cases, however, personal contacts and the awareness that the person has spent time in the field ‘getting their boots dirty’ are more important than titles and certifications. “Q: Do you trust forest services? Scientists? A: Forest service yes, scientists I don’t know [...]. But also the forest services, it depends, you need to find the good ones, for example the guy who came today, he’s good, helpful.”
As far as dogs are concerned, especially LGD, informants usually turn to more experienced colleagues to get information, in most cases those who sold or gave them the puppies.
The participants who are most active in the use of LPM insist strongly on the importance of knowledge exchange between colleagues, to discuss possible difficulties and solutions. Some of them also express the desire to be in a network with other shepherds/farmers.
Besides peers, also farmer associations are considered a source of knowledge, particularly in Austria and Bavaria and with participants being active members of such organizations. The magazines from farmers/shepherds’ associations are also considered a reliable source of information. Regarding scientific articles or reports from institutions about monitoring or research on the territory, participants are often suspicious. They show little interest in this type of material, due to a lack of time or because they feel that the content is not directly related to their activity: “[...] the technical data for my work are not so relevant, but it is the experience, the comparison with others. I don’t care if there are here seven or eight [wolf packs] or that 83.4% of the diet of the wolf is marmot, my problem is in the other 17%. So I'm not saying that they are stupid, I'm not saying that they are not useful, but for my sector we need something more tangible and more applicable on the ground, [...] for the love of God, I read them, I listen to them, I am curious, but it is not that I need them because I live and I sleep anyway, they eat them [livestock] or they let them live anyway.”
In most of the cases, participants also think that scientists lack real, direct experience in the field – “they come here, set up their cameras and go away”. When it comes to wolf monitoring, participants tend not to trust the data provided, which are considered underestimated compared to reality. There is the general tendency to consider those who provide the data as wolf protector and to doubt the adequacy of the monitoring methods used. The resentment towards monitoring technicians and operators is reinforced by the fact that images and material collected in the field, e.g., via camera traps and sample collection are not shared with local shepherds and livestock farmers.
Knowledge and Perception about Wolves
In total, only four participants have seen a wolf in the wild in their region, while the others have either never seen one or only in captivity or in the wild in other countries, like United States and Canada. The majority of respondents have a fair amount of basic knowledge about wolf biology (reproduction, feeding) while wolf's ethology is less known or comprehensible. One of the most difficult aspects to understand about wolf behaviour is their adaptability to different landscapes, including man-made environments. In general, informants believe that the wolf's natural and main habitats are forests or mountains, and areas with limited human presence. A minority of them acknowledge that also certain man-dominated landscapes can be suitable habitats for wolves and that some kind of coexistence is possible, if a certain form of equilibrium is established. Especially the people interviewed in Trentino follow this opinion: “The worst thing was killing all the wolves 200 years ago. By doing that, they have lost 4,000 years of teaching the wolf to stay away from humans. If there are some wolves who eat chamois and sometimes kill one of my sheep, that’s ok, but they can’t come close to my house.”
Another interviewee states: ”If I could explain to the wolf only to take one goat, ok, I’m sorry because it’s my goat and I’m fond of them, but it’s the course of nature. “
In Trentino, where both wolves and bears are present, participants automatically compare the two species. Respondents agree that wolves are more damaging to flocks than bears, and more intelligent - this intelligence and the excellent hunting skills impress all informants. In the context of livestock protection especially people working in areas with already stable wolf presence are aware of the predator hunting techniques. They report a higher risk for attacks in moments of fog and rain, during dusk and dawn. In this context, phenomena such as excessive or surplus killing are interpreted in different ways: some think that the wolf kills more animals than he can consume because he intends to return later to feed on it. Others believe finding a group of prey at the same time and the ease of killing, turns the wolf ‘bloodthirsty’ and particularly excited. Some perceive this phenomenon as a manifestation of the innate ‘meanness’ of this species. On many occasions the question comes up whether it is better for livestock farmers to have stable wolf packs or dispersing individuals in their territory. Some think that stable packs are better organized and able to prey on wildlife and adult individuals. Once they have gained negative experiences with fences and dogs, will avoid livestock and pass this lesson on to their offspring. Single dispersing wolves do not have this experience and are more likely to prey on domestic animals. Others, however, believe that dispersing wolves do not represent a particular threat to livestock, also because they are constantly moving around and do not settle in one area, while stable and organized packs are more likely to circumvent prevention measures.
Overall, participants who have already adopted LPM or are interested in doing so are aware that the number of wolves present in a specific area will no grow indefinitely, but the population has a self-regulating mechanism. The sceptics regarding herd protection, on the other hand, are more convinced that, unless controlled by humans, the wolf population can increase indefinitely. Nevertheless, the majority of interviewees think that wolf population should be somehow managed by humans. One concern is that without adequate culling quotas and enough abundance of prey, the number of animals will grow out of control. Some name the self-regulating mechanism but still underline the importance of culling ‘problematic’ animals to fuel in wolves a healthy fear of humans, thus prompting them to keep as far away as possible from livestock farms and man-made areas in general. This perspective is consistent with a more general view of nature expressed by the majority informants, in Austria, Bavaria and South Tyrol, according to which humans have a certain control function over nature, the landscape and animal species.
Perceived Obstacles and Burdens associated with Livestock Protection Measures
In Trentino, where large carnivores have been established for longer, LPM are more widespread, and there is greater knowledge about the different options for protecting livestock. A common perception in the other regions with recent colonization from wolves is that LPM are technically and financially not feasible in their own territory. There is a general conviction that implementation is not possible due to steep or stony terrain, or due to limited visibility for dogs in mountainous valleys and gorges on the pasture. A lot of concern also emerges regarding the behaviour of LGD toward humans and other animals (see below). There is an agreement, even among the people most in favour of livestock protection, that the costs and the extra workload required for these additional tasks are too high. Here some note the necessity to combine multiple measures to be effective, like dogs with fences or shepherds with fences, and the sum of investments exceeds the available economic and time resources. Besides scepticism about effectiveness and economical and work-related issues, there is a more ideological kind of resistance towards livestock protection: the acceptance of livestock protection would also mean an explicit acceptance of wolves' presence in the own territories. The informants who sustain this position often think that wolves shouldn’t be allowed in territories with farms or pastures grazing. Informants adopting LPM mention that they are seen as ‘traitors’ or ‘venal with provincial money’ because of their choices.
In terms of people's motivations for adopting LPM, the ones who already use them or would be interested in using them name these measures an ‘indispensable necessity’ to continue their livestock activities. The majority of the interviewees already use a wide variety of fences but only a minority specifically to protect livestock from predation, especially mobile electrified fences. In general, fences are considered useful for handling grazing livestock and an important orientation guide for dogs to recognise the boundaries of their working area. In general, those who use electrified fences say that after the first unpleasant experiences the animals, both livestock and possible predators, learn to respect these tools as a barrier: “You can see the lambs, they run into it two or three times and then they learn. In the beginning it is very intense, the muzzle is extremely sensitive, four wires, which has full effect, that is why we also rely on the electric fence, both for the sheep and the wolf, which we could say, learn that it is a barrier, to cross it is very painful.”.
On the contrary, interviewees less experienced in the use of anti-predator fences, doubt their effectiveness, often lack a clear idea about their functionality in a predator attack and fear that livestock could panic inside the fenced area. This refers especially to Austria, Bavaria and South Tyrol. In the same regions, informants also express concerns about the harmlessness of fences for grazing animals in terms of disease or accidents: in the case of goats, for example, they think animals can get entangled in the mobile fences with their horns. Those who work with cattle, both farmers and shepherds, agree that fences are difficult to use because these animals rarely form close herds and can take up very large areas. Others comment that electrified nets may be a dangerous barrier for wildlife. Moreover, the additional workload associated with fence management and night pens is considered not feasible for an already strenuous workday of a farmer/shepherd. This workload does not only include putting up, taking down and maintaining fences, but also the need to daily round up livestock in pens for protection at night, a task that many consider time-consuming and difficult to accomplish.
All participants agree that animals should be checked periodically but classified it more as a necessary health check and duty of a livestock owner, than as a predation prevention. The ones who already adopt others prevention measures like LGD or fences are also explicitly aware of the importance of human presence as a deterrent against predator attacks. Here livestock protection is defined as a system in which fences, dogs and humans must cooperate: “As I said, human presence, guardian dogs and fences are the most important things”.
The main difficulties farmers see in the employment of constantly present shepherds are the cost of labour and the difficulty of finding experienced and competent personnel. Participants who can only be involved in livestock farming on a part-time basis emphasise their limited time to look after the animals and at the same time do not have the resources to employ a person to do so: “I stay with them [sheep], and they graze, but this works only a few hours per day, I can’t stay with them all day, I’d like to do so, but nobody pays me.”
A couple of farmers in Austria suggested that it might be helpful to fund internships on pastures for young people who want to learn the profession and can spend the summer directly in the field with the animals if they get some financial support. This would allow the interested youth to gain useful skills and knowledge in practical work and support shepherds and farmers.
The importance of dogs as a support to work with animals is recognized by many informants in Italy and Austria, while in Bavaria, cattle and dairy farms barely use them: “Q: So, do you think that dogs are the key? A: Yes, they are, let’s say, the strength of coexistence.”
LGD are usually bought from other dog-owning farmers or from experiences breeder. Informants usually want to see the parent animals and their working style in order to choose a puppy: observing the dogs' behaviour is more important than the pedigree. Those who have adopted LGD for livestock protection are generally satisfied and acknowledge a significant reduction of predation episodes. In Austria and Bavaria, where LGD are less present, participants complain about the difficulties to find reliable dogs from trustworthy breeders. LGDs’ skills are considered innate, although a minimum of training seems necessary, as well as the socialization of the dog with livestock. The characteristics that informants pay attention to in LGD are the instinct to protect livestock, independence (understood as the ability to make decisions on the protection of the herd even without the instructions of the shepherd), the ability to organize themselves when they are in a pack, and balanced behaviour towards humans.
Regarding the attitude of LGD towards humans, the opinions diverge; the majority would prefer them to be tame and friendly even with strangers, a minority though appreciate a more aggressive behaviour to keep people away from the herd, both to take out livestock thieves and to prevent tourists from walking directly through the pasture area and disturb the animals.
LGDs’ owners acknowledge that these dogs can be a problem in tourist areas, but in most cases, they also claim that it is the tourists themselves who do not maintain a correct behaviour towards both livestock and dogs, even in presence of signs that advise people about the correct behaviour in case of an encounter with the herd. In touristic zones informants observe that tourists often do not respect their working and living spaces, that they disturb the animals and get too close to them and do not respect the basic rules to follow in the presence of livestock and dogs.
Many of those who do not have LGD recognize that they could be a good deterrent against predator attacks, but they also have many doubts about whether they should use them in their particular case. Here, the most common concern is the management of dogs in tourist areas and many raise their concern about possible accidents between LGD and hikers. Others state that in the case of unaccustomed herds, the presence of the dogs would be particularly stressful for livestock, who might run away, produce less milk, become agitated or disperse. For smaller farmers, maintaining the dogs would also be economically difficult, and the work and worries associated with their presence would be unsustainable. In the case of seasonal shepherds who could use the dogs during the summer period on alpine pastures, the question arises on the handling of the dogs during the wintertime, when there is no need for their work. How to cover the costs to feed them? Where to keep them? How to keep the dogs busy, also for their well-being? Another question raised is the number of dogs necessary to successfully protect livestock: some informants believe an entire pack of at least four to five dogs is necessary, a smaller number would not be effective in case of wolf attacks. Another concern is the level of effectiveness of these dogs in challenging natural terrains and circumstances: when the dogs have a limited overview of the area due to uneven terrain or if the grazing animals spread out too much in the pasture. How would that impact the work and level of protection these dogs can give to the herd? Others, especially participants inexperienced with LGD, also question the assertiveness of these dogs if directly confronted with wolves on the ground. They assume that the number of dogs must always exceed the number of wolves in order to be able to win a fight. In their view, the livestock owner must therefore adapt the number of dogs to the number of wolves on a regular basis.
The interviewees express a wide variety of feeding practices and level of tolerance for the economic expenses associated with dogs, both herding dogs and LGD. In general, veterinary expenses are considered less extensive than the feed costs. To save money and supplement dry food, some partially feed the dogs with slaughter waste and deliberately slaughter male livestock to serve as dog food on dairy farms.
In Trentino, some informants raise concerns about the funding mechanism for LGD and propose an alternative: Firstly, as a result of the public funding for the dog purchase, the market prices increased substantially and have led to an increment in semi-professional or even amateur breeding operations, through which the quality of the dogs suffers and unfit puppies come to the market. Inexperienced people start selling dogs to generate profit from public money. This mismanagement now leads to the fact that experienced livestock farmers or shepherds buy their dog from personal contact and forego the subsidies. Secondly, the money for the dog purchase is distributed without any compulsory training for the future owner or person who works with the dog. Informants propose to direct the public funding away from dog purchase towards covering dog food, veterinary expenses or husbandry costs during winter.