Testing Fladry – Part 2

By Tom Mallon

(This is the follow up to a blog post from March 21)

In our first post on fladry testing, we saw a mother grizzly bear and her cubs ducking under a line of fladry, virtually unfazed by the dangling red flags. The footage that we captured during that experiment provided enough evidence to conclude that fladry is most likely not an effective deterrent against grizzly bears.

A few weeks after running the grizzly bear experiment, we decided to test fladry in a different capacity: was there an ideal height at which to set the fence line off the ground. If the flags hang too low and touch the ground, the electrical current that is being carried through the fence will leak and a significant amount of voltage will be lost. Hung too high, the flags may be ineffective against keeping wolves from walking right under them.

We set up two fladry plots about 200 yards away from each other, one with the standard fence height of about 28 inches, and another about 8 inches higher. We then set up trail cameras around each plot and crossed our fingers.

When we returned to collect the cameras about 2 weeks later, we were pleasantly surprised by the footage. No wolves had ventured near, but a bobcat and a cougar had both decided to give the fladry a try!

Each feline seemed a bit skeptical of the flagging at first, but after careful inspection, both decided to slink under and see what was on the other side. The bobcat actually fell asleep inside of our fladry plot and was awakened when the cougar returned to reinvestigate the bait.

Watch for yourself how their interaction ended…