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posted by mrpg on Wednesday March 14 2018, @03:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the nobody-thinks-of-the-wolves dept.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) evaluated around 120 dogs from three large breeds from Europe and Asia bred to be gentle around sheep and children but vicious when confronting wolves. The four-year study was carried out by the USDA's National Wildlife Research Center and tested how these dogs did guarding livestock against wolves and coyotes in the western US.

[...] Young and her colleagues zeroed in on areas where dogs had been bred to protect livestock from wolves and brown bears. They selected three breeds for the study: Cao de Gado Transmontanos, originally from the mountains of Portugal; Karakachans, bred by nomadic shepherds in Bulgaria; and Kangals, developed to guard livestock in Turkey. The dogs were gathered as puppies and sent to the U.S., where they were used to guard 65 herds of sheep in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Washington, and Oregon.

Another finding was that when the owner and the dogs had a closer bond, the dogs performed their jobs much better. Something that might not be commonly realized in areas where they are kept exclusively for companionship or entertainment is that the different breeds of dogs are bred to gravitate to and specialize in particular activities: they have jobs they like doing.

From The Scientist : The Breeds of Guard Dogs that Best Protect Livestock: Study (2018)
and The Associated Press : Imported guard dogs deployed as part of US wolf-sheep study (2018)
and Agri-Pulse : Got wolves? USDA brings on the big dogs (2014).


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  • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 14 2018, @04:45AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 14 2018, @04:45AM (#652153)

    You city dwellers keep thinking wolves are cute doggies, but we killed them for a damn good reason. They cause harm, both directly to humans and indirectly by killing our livestock.

    We even burned all the forest off of Mount Monadnock just to wipe out a wolf pack. The mountain is still bald 2 centuries later.

    At this point, reintroducing the wolf is like introducing an invasive species. One might as well release lions and tigers and hippos and tse-tse flies and bot flies and the guinea worm. Heck, go for smallpox too!

    People who support wolves are a special kind of traitor. It's not really against a country. It's against humanity itself. We tamed the wilderness so we could live safely, and some people want to undo that.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 14 2018, @09:57AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 14 2018, @09:57AM (#652254)

    I know you won't bother, but the food web [wikipedia.org] is a complex and delicate balance that starts with microbes and works its way up to apex predators. You might consider actually learning something for a change instead of reveling in your ignorance.

    Given that the members of food webs around the world have evolved to prosper in their particular food web, modifying such a web significantly can (and has in the past) destroyed ecosystems.

    That's not "city dwellers thinking wolves are good doggies." Wolves are predators and pretty dangerous ones too. Anyone who thinks differently is in for a big surprise if they run across one or a pack of them.

    But it's not just a bunch of soft urbanites saying "aww, sweet wolves!"

    It's science, bitch! Deal with it!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 14 2018, @10:26AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 14 2018, @10:26AM (#652264)

      He is one of those who tames shit.

      After it is tamed nothing is ever will go wrong.

      We should kill all bears alligators poisonous snakes constricting snakes spiders sharks lions tigers and many more just like I killed the comma.

      Taming. Hahaha. Let’s kill the humans too. They kill far more kids and adults than wolves.

      Start with the idiots that think they tame stuff.