Testing Fladry – Part 1

By Tom Mallon

Fladry fencing consists of a line of rope affixed with hanging strips of fabric or colored flags that flutter in the breeze. It is primarily used to deter wolves from entering calving pastures. The flags’ inconsistent flapping takes advantage of wolves’ natural suspicion of anything new in their environment and is intended to scare carnivores away from the fenced areas—namely cattle enclosures, especially during calving season.

According to Marco Musiani, fladry was first used in Eastern Europe several centuries ago. More recently Musiani saw hunters in Poland use it to drive packs of wolves toward a kill spot. In North America, it has been set up as deterrence for wolves and other carnivores, but anecdotal evidence has indicated it does not deter bears and cougars as effectively as wolves. We wanted to see for ourselves, so last fall we set about testing that theory.

Bryce Andrews, our Northern Field Director, took the lead on our first fladry trial near Montana’s Mission Valley. Bryce is a fladry aficionado and has played an integral role at People and Carnivores by installing many, many yards of fladry and spreading the good word about its effectiveness. In the spring of 2017, Bryce set up some trail cameras around one of our project sites and captured some pretty compelling footage of wolves navigating the perimeter of our fladry enclosure. The wolves were sufficiently spooked by the flapping red flags, and, after multiple nights of testing the fence, they never actually entered the pasture, even with young calves just a few feet away. This time around, he was intent to capture footage of grizzly bears interacting with the fladry in a similar way.

The concept of the test was quite simple: find an area where there are known grizzly bears, make a pile of food to attract bears, surround the food with electrified fladry, and set up some trail cameras to film any four-legged visitors that tried to break in.

The results:

Shortly after Bryce set up the fladry, a mother grizzly bear and her two cubs got a whiff of our trial plot and came to investigate. They approached the suspended flagging and gave the fence a quick sniff. Almost without hesitation, the cubs ducked under the electrified cord (without getting shocked). As her cubs gorged themselves, the cautious mother bear continued to survey the scene. She paced back and forth along the fence line a few more times before deciding the coast was clear, and then, she too, ducked under the flags without getting shocked.

Our cameras caught it all!