We’d just lacked alternatives. Golden eagles and bald eagles were taking advantage of newborn lambs in our lambing flock, and for the previous couple of weeks we were discovering a minimum of one brand-new eagle-killed lamb every day.
Both types of eagles are safeguarded under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, with criminal charges of approximately $100,000 and jail time for approximately a year for infractions. The law specifies when it pertains to restrictions on “take” of an eagle, which implies to “pursue, shoot, shoot at, poison, wound, kill, capture, trap, collect, molest or disturb.”
We were already using livestock guardian dogs and were keeping the flock herded and concentrated as much as possible considering that the flock was giving birth to lambs on open range. The big dogs harassed the birds and tried to keep them away from the sheep, but the eagles were persistent.
We time our lambing season so that our ewes give birth at the same time as the pronghorn antelope that share the same range. But with the severe winter kill of wildlife herds, there just weren’t many wild fawns on the ground. It makes sense that eagles would turn to the most abundant food source available, which happens to be newborn lambs. Our lamb-a-day death loss is small compared to some of the neighboring sheep flocks that were getting hit much harder, with more eagles concentrating on their lambing ranges.
One afternoon I watched two newborn lambs stand and began to nurse on their mother before retreating to let them have this needed bonding time. When I returned a few hours later on my next check, I encountered a golden eagle walking on the ground toward the ewe, wings outstretched, trying to intimidate the ewe to flee from her lambs. But the ewe had backed her lambs into the tall brush behind her, and wasn’t having any of the eagle’s aggression, facing the eagle head on and stomping with her front hooves, refusing to budge. I chased the eagle away with the truck and then hurried to grab a dog out of the main flock and dropped her with the ewe and her lambs for protection.
We hazed the eagles by chasing them in the truck, and used a variety of noise-making techniques, while consulting with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service about what hazing activities were allowed. We consulted with animal damage control specialists, other sheep producers, eagle experts, and federal wildlife officials, and they all reported that effective options to deter eagles were very limited.
One option would be live trapping and relocating some of the eagles, but that would require a federal permit, which would take time and would require expert eagle handlers willing to spend time on the ranch to do the work. That may be a good option, but we were just two weeks from the end of the lambing season, so what we were looking for was a short-term fix. We found it in a scientific paper published 40 years ago. Ten years of eagle research on a Montana ranch examined a variety of deterrence techniques and offered up an old-school idea for the short term: scarecrows.
Scarecrows have been used all over the world for thousands of years to deter birds from grain fields, and as one researcher described, “Instantly recognizable, it is thought to be a premodern form of deception devised by the earliest pastoral peoples.”
Jim and I got some products and went out to install our very first scarecrows on the edges of the lambing premises. There’s very little to their building: simply a steel t-post with a brief length of 2×4 connected near the top of the post to permit some broke coveralls or clothing to be included, with a couple of branches of dead brush packed inside provide the figure some bulk. I glued pictures of huge eyeballs onto some old sunglasses, and included a hat onto a milk container (turned upside down) to finish the appearance. By cutting a slit into the top of the container, when turned upside down it fits comfortably over the t-post. We protected whatever with cotton twine or zipties.
The scarecrows are light-weight enough that the arms and one leg shift positions in the wind. I had the ability to see among the guardian dogs, Panda, when he saw a scarecrow for the very first time, and he was quickly associated with a standoff with the strange-looking figure standing on the ditch bank above the flock. His alarm at the figure was a good sign of how the eagles would respond. I chuckled when our young rounding up dog, Fly, approached a 2nd scarecrow with a wagging tail, obviously anticipating to be cuddled by this figure using a few of Jim’s old work clothing.
The tactic needs to have worked due to the fact that we stopped discovering eagle eliminates. For the very first couple of days we saw eagles flying overhead, however they didn’t land. But by the 4th day, we had 2 golden eagles back to setting down on ridge above the sheep and its scarecrows. By then the variety of brand-new lambs being born was decreasing, so we simply required to manage a little longer (so we hope).
Leave it to man’s friend to offer the response. One of the animals guardian dogs, Vin, had actually been remaining at our boy’s location, however went back to the cattle ranch and was alarmed when he came across the scarecrows. He invested a day raising the alarm, however stopped working to get any of the other dogs to care by that time. Resigned to the scenario, Vin has actually used up residency on the ground beside the scarecrow. He’s been out there for 2 days. From a range, it appears that a man and his dog are stationed along the ditch bank.
I have no concept what Vin is believing; is he securing the scarecrow from disruption, or making certain the scarecrow doesn’t approach the sheep? Regardless, the addition of the dog beside the scarecrow has actually offered sufficient modification in their environment that the eagles are as soon as again keeping their range.
Vin will ultimately tire of his singular sentry and return to patrolling with the other dogs as they move with the sheep. When that occurs, we’ll include some colored banners and piepans to the scarecrows to alter their look. Soon we’ll have the ability to take apart the scarecrows as the lambing season concludes.
Next year, we’ll be all set for the eagles with brand-new scarecrows, however it’s up to Vin whether they’ll be persuading enough for a repeat efficiency.
Cat Urbigkit is an author and rancher who lives on the variety in Sublette County, Wyoming. Her column, Range Writing, appears weekly in Cowboy State Daily.
