The use of artificial chemical signals to protect livestock from predators and predators from lethal control is a win-win strategy that will enhance the conservation of carnivores and protect rural livelihoods.
This was revealed by Senior Researcher from Botswana Predator Conservation, Dr Peter Apps this past weekend at Re Jala Peo organisation’s fourth Environmental Awareness conference held in Maun.
Presenting some of the ground-breaking results from his research, Dr App noted that predators are killed for attacks on stock because none of the current non-lethal interventions are effective and affordable, and so there is a need to resolve this issue.
“There is an urgent need for genuinely innovative ways to foster sustainable human-predator co-existence. Predators mark their territories with scent in urine and faeces, and BioBoundaries artificially replicate the “keep out” signals of the scent-marks, deterring predators from going into areas where they are vulnerable to lethal conflict with humans, and from getting close to livestock,” he said. HE added that farmers would kill fewer predators when the synthetic equivalents of predator odours reduce attacks on livestock, and deter carnivores from straying out of protected wildlife areas.
Dr App said with fewer conflict killings, core populations of predators in wildlife areas, where they earn tourism dollars will be safer, and predator populations outside wildlife areas will cause fewer problems for farmers.
“The BioBoundary Project has made a series of unique advances that demonstrate that deterrents based on predators’ scent signals really do protect livestock from predators and predators from lethal control,” Dr App said.
He explained that there are two main components of the BioBoundary Project; African wild dog perimeter BioBoundaries, and deterrents to keep predators away from livestock.
“They both build on ground-breaking discoveries; that African wild dogs use multi-pack scent-marking sites, and that wild, free-ranging predators respond to single chemicals from their chemical signals, and can be kept away from livestock by odour-based deterrents,” he shared.
African wild dogs are endangered as there are only about 700 packs in the whole of Africa and if they leave wildlife areas, they are vulnerable to conflict killings, poachers and vehicle collisions.
Packs mark their territories with urine and faeces deposited at marking sites used by multiple packs and the BioBoundary project will replicate those territorial border marks along the buffalo fence to keep the packs safely inside the wildlife areas.
Two thirds of Botswana’s area is used for livestock, and could be predator habitat as long as the predators do not kill livestock, according to Dr App. He said that the BioBoundary project is developing deterrents that will keep predators away from livestock.
“One chemical from leopard urine, identified in the BioBoundary laboratory in Maun, keeps leopards out of ranches and away from cattle-post kraals, stops spotted hyenas from crossing the buffalo fence, and, when released at a cattle ranch kraal reduced the number of calves killed by leopards to a quarter of what it was before,” he said.
On a livestock ranch in the Hainaveld the sheep and goats wear collars loaded with BioBoundary leopard deterrent, and are safe even though there are at least three leopards living on the same ranch.
“A cattle-post owner who was losing one goat a day to caracals called Peter and his assistant Johane Masene asked for help. Peter and Johane put deterrent collars on about one third of the goats, and the predation stopped immediately.
“When a leopard killed two goats from the same flock they added leopard deterrent to the collars, and the leopard left the goats alone. No other non-lethal intervention is as effective as BioBoundary scent deterrents at stopping predation of livestock,” Dr App said, emphasising that, Botswana leads the world in this area of research.
“Once their active ingredients have been identified and formulated, the use of scent-based deterrents is low-tech, low-cost, quick and easy. The value of the livestock they save pays for the deterrents ten to a hundred times over.
“Odour-based deterrents are the only non-lethal conflict interventions that will be cheaper and easier to apply than bullets, snares and poison, and the only ones that subsistence livestock owners are likely to spontaneously adopt, so that predator conservation will no longer be dependent on foreign money and expertise,” he explained.
In the commercial livestock sector, odour-based predator deterrents will reduce predation losses that run into the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
The BioBoundary is the first step in a long-term strategic development of a new family of minimally invasive, ecologically and economically sustainable tools to reduce human-predator conflict.
This was revealed by Senior Researcher from Botswana Predator Conservation, Dr Peter Apps this past weekend at Re Jala Peo organisation’s fourth Environmental Awareness conference held in Maun.
Presenting some of the ground-breaking results from his research, Dr App noted that predators are killed for attacks on stock because none of the current non-lethal interventions are effective and affordable, and so there is a need to resolve this issue.
“There is an urgent need for genuinely innovative ways to foster sustainable human-predator co-existence. Predators mark their territories with scent in urine and faeces, and BioBoundaries artificially replicate the “keep out” signals of the scent-marks, deterring predators from going into areas where they are vulnerable to lethal conflict with humans, and from getting close to livestock,” he said. HE added that farmers would kill fewer predators when the synthetic equivalents of predator odours reduce attacks on livestock, and deter carnivores from straying out of protected wildlife areas.
Dr App said with fewer conflict killings, core populations of predators in wildlife areas, where they earn tourism dollars will be safer, and predator populations outside wildlife areas will cause fewer problems for farmers.
“The BioBoundary Project has made a series of unique advances that demonstrate that deterrents based on predators’ scent signals really do protect livestock from predators and predators from lethal control,” Dr App said.
He explained that there are two main components of the BioBoundary Project; African wild dog perimeter BioBoundaries, and deterrents to keep predators away from livestock.
“They both build on ground-breaking discoveries; that African wild dogs use multi-pack scent-marking sites, and that wild, free-ranging predators respond to single chemicals from their chemical signals, and can be kept away from livestock by odour-based deterrents,” he shared.
African wild dogs are endangered as there are only about 700 packs in the whole of Africa and if they leave wildlife areas, they are vulnerable to conflict killings, poachers and vehicle collisions.
Packs mark their territories with urine and faeces deposited at marking sites used by multiple packs and the BioBoundary project will replicate those territorial border marks along the buffalo fence to keep the packs safely inside the wildlife areas.
Two thirds of Botswana’s area is used for livestock, and could be predator habitat as long as the predators do not kill livestock, according to Dr App. He said that the BioBoundary project is developing deterrents that will keep predators away from livestock.
“One chemical from leopard urine, identified in the BioBoundary laboratory in Maun, keeps leopards out of ranches and away from cattle-post kraals, stops spotted hyenas from crossing the buffalo fence, and, when released at a cattle ranch kraal reduced the number of calves killed by leopards to a quarter of what it was before,” he said.
On a livestock ranch in the Hainaveld the sheep and goats wear collars loaded with BioBoundary leopard deterrent, and are safe even though there are at least three leopards living on the same ranch.
“A cattle-post owner who was losing one goat a day to caracals called Peter and his assistant Johane Masene asked for help. Peter and Johane put deterrent collars on about one third of the goats, and the predation stopped immediately.
“When a leopard killed two goats from the same flock they added leopard deterrent to the collars, and the leopard left the goats alone. No other non-lethal intervention is as effective as BioBoundary scent deterrents at stopping predation of livestock,” Dr App said, emphasising that, Botswana leads the world in this area of research.
“Once their active ingredients have been identified and formulated, the use of scent-based deterrents is low-tech, low-cost, quick and easy. The value of the livestock they save pays for the deterrents ten to a hundred times over.
“Odour-based deterrents are the only non-lethal conflict interventions that will be cheaper and easier to apply than bullets, snares and poison, and the only ones that subsistence livestock owners are likely to spontaneously adopt, so that predator conservation will no longer be dependent on foreign money and expertise,” he explained.
In the commercial livestock sector, odour-based predator deterrents will reduce predation losses that run into the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
The BioBoundary is the first step in a long-term strategic development of a new family of minimally invasive, ecologically and economically sustainable tools to reduce human-predator conflict.
