Journal article
Livestock guardian dogs establish a landscape of fear for wild predators: Implications for the role of guardian dogs in reducing human–wildlife conflict and supporting biodiversity conservation
L van Bommel, M Magrath, G Coulson, CN Johnson
Ecological Solutions and Evidence | Published : 2024
Open access
Abstract
Livestock guardian dogs (LGDs) are increasingly used to protect livestock from predators, but their effects on the distribution and behaviour of wild predators are mostly unknown. A key question is whether LGDs exclude predators from grazing land, or if predators continue to use areas with LGDs but modify their behaviour in ways that reduce impacts on livestock. We studied effects of LGDs (Maremma sheepdogs) on distribution and behaviour of red foxes Vulpes vulpes in north-eastern Victoria, Australia. We mapped the activity of LGDs across the study areas using GPS tracking and measured fox activity using remote cameras. We also measured risk-sensitive foraging in foxes to test if they reduce..
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Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
We acknowledge that the work described in this article was carried out on the country of the Dhudhuroa people and pay our respects to them as traditional custodians of the land. We thank the Australian Research Council for funding. We also thank the owners of Riversdale, Heatherlie, Wagonbark and Mullameah for generously allowing us free access to their properties and for use of their Maremmas in this research. Many thanks go to Cyril Scomparin, Rob van Bommel and Adam Lee for their invaluable help in fieldwork. The research was carried out under ethics approval from the University of Tasmania, approval no. A0015721. Open access publishing facilitated by University of Tasmania, as part of the Wiley - University of Tasmania agreement via the Council of Australian University Librarians.