When the grazing season starts soon, sheep and goat keepers all over Bavaria will fear. Because in recent years the number of wolves that live in the Free State or even just pass through it has increased significantly. And with the number of wolves, the risk of bloody attacks on livestock on the pastures increases.
Christian Mendel knows the fear of the wolf only too well. The 64-year-old breeds rare rock and alpine mountain sheep, he keeps a small flock of 30 ewes in Neubeuern in Upper Bavaria. Mendel is going into spring much more calmly this year. “I’ve now made my pastures wolf-proof with a solid fence, protection against digging under and protection against jumping over,” he says. “Now I’m a lot more relaxed.”
Mendel has not only been a passionate sheep farmer since his youth. But also breeding manager and herd protection specialist at the State Institute for Agriculture (LfL) in Freising near Munich. In recent years, he and his colleagues have been working intensively on how the keepers of sheep and goats, but also of cattle, game animals and horses can best protect their animals from wolf attacks.
Their conclusion: Fence, fence, fence – or as the wolf specialist Christian Tausch from the State Office for the Environment (LfU) says: “The previous wolf attacks here in Bavaria have almost all happened to unprotected and insufficiently protected livestock. If the owners then If you put up an appropriately secure fence, the danger was usually averted.”
Sheep breeder and herd protection specialist Christian Mendel.
(Photo: LfL)
There are now umpteen variants of wolf-proof fences. The LfL is now presenting a selection of these at a demonstration facility in Poing near Munich. The basic rule is: “The fence must be at least 90 centimeters high,” says Mendel, “105 is even better.” And it has to be powered. Because an electric shock is so painful for a wolf that it avoids the area where it was once electrocuted. “That’s why a wolf-proof fence has four strands,” says Mendel. “The bottom one must be no more than 20 centimeters from the ground.” Another point is the so-called digging protection – for example, steel mats bent at a 90-degree angle, which are attached to the lower edge of the fence and “grow into” the ground within a short timehttps://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/. “It has proven itself very well,” says Mendel. “Because wolves usually don’t jump over a fence, they burrow under it.”
The most common are electronic meshes
The most common protective systems are so-called electrical networks, which can be set up and dismantled quickly. But there are also all kinds of fixed fences on the market, whether with posts made of wood or plastic, including up to 1.7 meters high with strands on top, which on steep slopes prevent wolves from jumping down into the pasture . In addition, systems have long been developed with which a creek can be spanned in such a way that a wolf cannot swim through it and thus reach the pasture. Gates through which hikers and mountain bikers, but also grazing animals themselves can effortlessly pass through a wolf-proof fence, are available in all possible widths.
An effective protective fence should be at least 90 centimeters high and have four strands.
(Photo: Christian Mendel, LfL)
And of course you can retrofit fences that were previously not wolf-proof. One example is ground-mounted photovoltaic arrays where sheep keep the grass short, more specifically the chain link fences that surround them. The wire mesh doesn’t reach to the ground with them. The reason: rabbits, hedgehogs, foxes and other smaller wild animals should be able to switch back and forth between inside and outside at any time. The only problem is that the distance between the ground and the wire mesh is so great that even a wolf can easily get onto the site. And then the sheep in the facility are defenseless at the mercy of the predator. The solution is precisely those kinked reinforcement steel mats, which can also be retrofitted. As different as the protective fences are, so are the costs. According to Mendel, they range from two to three euros per running meter for simple electrical networks and up to eight euros for permanent fences.
Bavaria has launched a lavish support program
The Free State is now very interested in effective livestock protection. “I say very clearly: if herd protection is reasonable and reasonable, it should be done,” explains Minister of Agriculture Michaela Kaniber (CSU). Environment Minister Thorsten Faithr (FW) also emphasizes: “Herd protection is an important building block in our wolf management.” For this reason, the state government has launched a particularly lavish subsidy program for fences. In regions where wolves live, she usually covers the costs in full. That should be unique, farmers usually have to make their own contribution to subsidy programs. The fence program has been very well received. The ten million euro mark is likely to be exceeded in the near future.
Streams and ditches can also be spanned with simple means so that wolves cannot get through them to a pasture.
(Photo: Christian Mendel, LfL)
However, there is also skepticism. Some pet owners are bothered by the comparatively high cost of maintaining such a fence. For example, the grass under the bottom strand must be kept short so that it is safely energized. Also, you can’t put up fences everywhere. On the alpine pastures in the Bavarian Alps, the pastures are often very steep and inaccessible – the vast majority of alpine farmers therefore consider it simply impossible to effectively protect their sheep and goats up there with fences from wolf attacks.
They have therefore been calling for so-called wolf-free zones for years, in which predators can be shot down as they approach sheep or other farm animals. However, such wolf-free zones are not legally possible. Because the wolf is one of the most strictly protected animals. This is also the reason why the state government’s demands that it must be possible to shoot a wolf if it has once or even repeatedly attacked or even killed sheep or other livestock in a pasture have so far come to nothing.