Wolf Attacks
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Reduce wolf attacks through prevention measures
Data collection in progress
Iron Curtain to Green Belt
Bulgaria
Problem: Wolf attacks on livestock in the landscape lead to farmers poisoning wolves and other wild carnivores in an attempt protect their animals. Farmers are not aware of other measures that may be more effective at protecting their livestock from attacks.
Action: The project will implement measures to mitigate the number of wolf attacks on livestock, via awareness-raising, prevention and education efforts. These will include providing electric fences to enable farmers to protect livestock and setting up a compensation scheme for farmers that lose livestock to wolves or other wild carnivores.
Indicator: The number of wolf attacks on livestock will be measured to assess the effectiveness of the mitigation measures that have been put into place.
Methods
Data for this indicator will be collected continually via two methods:
(1) direct reports from farmers or livestock breeders and local hunters’ associations on any wolf attacks that have taken place
(2) from regional authorities (police, forestry services, regional inspectorate of environment) on reports of livestock attacks that they have received.
If reports of attack locations from sources (1) and (2) are the same, the incident is reported as a single attack to avoid double-counting. Note that the reporting rate to official authorities is likely to be an underestimate. It is therefore important to directly communicate with farmers as well, to obtain a more accurate estimate of the true attack rate.
Results
In 2023, baseline data have been gathered for only one part of the project landscape, in the Eastern Rhodopes. These data are based on face-to-face interviews with farmers in remote areas, which is the only reliable way of data gathering for attacks of wolves, jackals and feral dogs on livestock. In the Eastern Rhodopes, a majority of the attacks in 2023 were reported as being made by wolves (15 out of 24), based on signs such as direct observations, number of animals killed or footprints. However, in some cases there is no evidence of the type of predator that made the kill, as other predators quickly find and feed on the carcass.
The survey is still ongoing in the rest of the project area and baseline value for the whole project area will be available in 2025.
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