Protection Through Bio-Boundaries (5:30-minute Video)

From mongoose to lion, all types of predators pose varied challenges to the different groups of farmers.

Predators use odors to send messages that modify behavior.

The odors are mixtures of airborne chemicals and if synthetic chemicals are used to replicate them, the artificial odors will have the same effect on the receivers’ behavior.

Those effects can be used to keep livestock safe from predator attacks and protect threatened populations of predators from lethal control measures.

Botswana Predator Conservation’s Bio-Boundary Project is developing new ways of mitigating human-predator conflict by using artificial equivalents of natural chemical signals to keep predators away from livestock or safely inside protected wildlife areas.

The African wild dog is the main focus of the Trust’s work because it is the most vulnerable to lethal control.