If You Build It, They Will…Stay Away!?
While not exactly how the old saying goes, this was precisely Defenders’ hope when we joined forces with USDA Wildlife Services and the Natural Resources Defense Council to build a fence around Noble Orchards in the small Sierra foothill town of Paradise, California, to protect both native wildlife and a family-owned business from harm.
At the height of the 2017 ripening fruit season at the 15-acre orchard, scores of black bears preparing for a long winter’s nap descended on the Nobles’ property in Butte County to feast on calorie-laden apples and peaches. Each fall, bears enter a phase called hyperphagia as they prepare for hibernation, during which they consume as many calories as the they can in order to build up their fat reserves. Unfortunately, these bears didn’t delicately pick fruit off the trees, but instead, they tore down branch after branch, damaging and in some cases completely destroying the mature, fruit-bearing trees. During the five-week period when the most damage occurred, the Nobles lost 15 to 30 trees per night. By the end of the season, bears damaged or destroyed 832 trees, totaling more than $2.36 million dollars — significant losses for this small family business that’s been operating for nearly 100 years.
Unfortunately for the bruins, their damaging behavior resulted in the lethal removal of seven bears from the property by wildlife management officials. But nature abhors a vacuum and killing “nuisance” wildlife seldom solves the root cause of conflicts. In discussion with the Nobles, the local USDA Wildlife Services representative recognized that there had to be a better way to resolve the problem and ran it up to his supervisor. The agency leadership agreed to offer assistance of a different kind.
For the past few years, Defenders of Wildlife and the Natural Resources Defense Council have been working with USDA Wildlife Services offices throughout the western United States to strengthen our relations and explore new ways to minimize conflicts between agricultural producers and wildlife without relying on lethal means. When the USDA Wildlife Service’s California director learned of the situation at Noble Orchards, he reached out to Defenders and NRDC to try something new: reinforcing the Nobles’ barrier fence with electric fencing to deter bears from entering the orchards, and in turn, protecting the fruit trees, the Nobles’ livelihood, and the bears.
This innovative approach to increase coexistence — allowing wildlife and humans to share the landscape — is an area where Defenders has much expertise. Properly installed electric fencing is proven to be a simple and effective way to keep bears and other wildlife out of trouble as they seek out attractants such as garbage, beehives, gardens, chickens, livestock, or in the case of this project, trees heavy with ripe fruit.
This year brings the eighth year of Defenders’ popular Electric Fence Incentive Program, which reimburses landowners 50 percent of the cost of an electric fence (up to $500) for securing items that attract grizzly bears in the Northern Rockies. While we have helped complete more than 320 electric fences on private lands in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and eastern Washington, this was our first electric fence project to deter black bear conflicts in California.
Back in Paradise, there was much work to be done and it was going to take assistance from all parties to make this project happen. Partners did a site assessment in spring of 2018 to determine the game plan: how much and what kind of equipment and materials would be required, when would we do the work, and how many boots on the ground would it take to get us across the finish line. “Team Noble” — consisting of 15 representatives from our four partnering groups — convened at the orchard earlier this summer for three long workdays to get the project done.
The Nobles and their staff worked tirelessly through the late spring and early summer to finish reconstruction of their 8’ interior barrier fence around the orchard, which is designed to keep deer out but would also serve as the foundation for the bear-resistant electric fence. USDA Wildlife Services brought their welding expertise to the table in a big way, by fabricating hundreds of metal brackets needed to bolster the many fence corners and then welding those into place. With the hot and dry conditions, the utmost of caution was exercised to avoid sparking any fires while welding.
The electric fence selected for this project was a 4-wire design. With more than 300 fence posts around the orchard, we got busy installing more than 1,200 insulators! There was a bit of trial and error to start, but once we found our stride, team members quickly became experts at this tedious yet important task.
Stringing and tightening the electric wire along the barrier fence and gates came next. The grounding rods were sunk into the hard earth and then came the moment of truth: testing the electric fence after our days of hard labor.
The switch was flipped and…nothing. Nothing?!
Defenders’ Rockies and Plains Associate and electric fencing expert, Russ Talmo, didn’t flinch. He reassured us that this is more common than one might imagine, but nothing that a quick walk around the fence to do a little troubleshooting wouldn’t fix. So our team split up and headed in opposite directions along the fenceline to see if we could find any places where the electric wires may be in contact with the metal barrier fence. Sure enough, we found a few. We anxiously returned to test the electric fence once again.
Success: IT’S HOT!
We installed several motion-triggered cameras to monitor any critters’ attempts to climb the new fence and gain access to the orchard. We will review the photos and videos from these cameras to see what images and footage they capture — and to see how the local wildlife reacts to this new electrified barrier. It is important to gather data from these projects to improve our understanding of wildlife behavior and increase our success on future projects.
As the saying goes, many hands make light work — and that was certainly the case with the Noble fence build. We would like to extend our thanks to Noble Orchards and USDA Wildlife Services for reaching out to us to partner on this innovative and collaborative project to safeguard the Nobles’ orchard as well as the local wildlife in Paradise. We look forward to continuing our important work together to increase the use of nonlethal tools and strategies to reduce human-wildlife conflicts here in California and throughout the western United States. These kinds of powerful partnerships help wildlife by keeping them alive and out of trouble while helping landowners like the Nobles keep their businesses thriving.
- Pam
