Washington buys upgraded devices to help prevent wolf-livestock conflict

Aug. 9—Washington wildlife officials have added to their wolf conservation repertoire with an improved version of an old tool to keep carnivores away from livestock.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has purchased five new radio-activated guard boxes, devices that play sounds and flash lights when triggered by the approach of a radio-collared wolf.

Called RAG boxes for short, the devices were developed through a partnership between WDFW, wildlife agencies in California and Oregon, the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife and engineers at Epimedia, Inc.

It's an improvement on technology that's been used for decades to try to shoo wolves away from cattle. Officials and conservationists hope the new devices will find wide use and help cut back on conflict.

"There's a variety of ways that this can really help," said Shawn Cantrell, vice president of field conservation for Defenders of Wildlife.

A Montana rancher came up with the idea for RAG boxes in the 1990s. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services designed the original version, according to a WDFW blog post.

They've been used around the West since then, but not without problems. Breakdowns were common, and finding a new one was tough because there were no consistent manufacturers of the devices.

Staci Lehman, a WDFW spokesperson, said the agency has used the devices for at least 20 years, placing them in areas where wolves might have run-ins with livestock. Agency staffers spent a lot of time repairing them, and some were eventually beyond repair.

At its peak, the agency had three RAG boxes.

"At the end of last grazing season, we were down to one that was actually working," Lehman said.

In 2020, Defenders of Wildlife started working with engineers at Epimedia to make a new, tougher version of the box.

Rod Swift, president of Epimedia, a company with offices in New Mexico and California, said the process began with identifying the limitations of the old boxes. He said the systems were heavy and bulky, and it was hard to tune the boxes for the radio frequencies put off by collars.

And the technology involved was outdated.

"There was a bunch of technology that came along and made it more efficient and easier to improve the performance, and make it lighter and smaller," Swift said.

After three years, they ended up with the finished product. It looks like a small plastic suitcase with headlights, and it's paired with a set of speakers and an antenna. It attaches to a fencepost, and it can be plugged into an outlet or powered by a battery.

The boxes can pick up a frequency from a radio collar at a range of 200 yards, according to WDFW. When they go off, a one-way radio signal will alert a biologist or a landowner within 5 miles of the box.

Each one costs $3,200. Washington, Oregon and California have all purchased them.

Defenders of Wildlife has bought at least a half-dozen, Cantrell said, and the nonprofit plans to give them to individual landowners the group works with or to help support state wildlife agencies.

Lehman said some of the boxes Washington bought are already in use. They'll likely be moved around in northeastern and southeastern Washington, depending on where they're needed, and paired with a game camera.

Lehman said WDFW wants to "be proactive and get them out there before there are issues."

The boxes aren't a silver bullet that will end all conflict between wolves and livestock.

They'll only go off when approached by collared wolves, which make up a fraction of the overall wolf population. Washington has at least 216 wolves in 37 packs, and Lehman said WDFW aims to have two collared wolves per pack.

The boxes are meant to complement other efforts to reduce conflict, like WDFW's range rider program.

Cantrell said he hopes the rollout of the new boxes "can hopefully demonstrate that this is a very viable tool for helping to reduce wildlife conflicts between wolves and livestock."