Coyote in Russian Ridge Preserve. (Peter Canning)

Wildlife and Livestock Protection Research

In 2021, Midpen began a collaborative 5-year wildlife and livestock protection study in collaboration with scientists who study wildlife and livestock conflict management.  

The purpose of this research is to safeguard native plant and wildlife while promoting the economic sustainability of conservation grazing where livestock predation by wildlife may occur.

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Natural Resources Protection and Restoration
Natural Resources
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Agriculture
Agriculture
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Coastside
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illustration of a notebook with images of animals on cover
Research

Goals and Objectives

The research is covering the following general scope of work:

  • Conduct a wildlife and livestock protection study
  • Provide annual updates and research findings
  • Create a predation risk map
  • Support and evaluate a potential pilot volunteer livestock monitoring program
  • Publish research findings
  • Develop site-specific plans to reduce wildlife-livestock conflicts in conservation grazing areas

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The Current Science

In 2018, Midpen performed a review of the currently available scientific literature on wildlife-livestock interactions, which Midpen built on to add to as part of this new 5-year study. Here is a summary of what the current best-available science tells us:

Project Partners

The research is performed collaboratively with:

University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Santa Cruz Puma Project
California Polytechnic State University

Together, the cooperating researchers have authored more than 58 peer-reviewed scientific papers on the subject of wildlife and livestock conflict management.