bear fences

[Valley Farm Supply]

Gallagher Gets Grizzly



Got a problem keeping a few cows fenced in? How about keeping a few
hundred grizzlies fenced out? Or making sure a few dozen black bears
aren’t getting after your goats?



Bears of all kinds are a sometime dangerous nuisance around
Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and the national forests of
northwestern Wyoming. It’s a wilderness area bordered by Montana and
Idaho that’s perfect habitat for a large and growing population of
bears.



Bears are born scavengers that can get aggressive when they’re
hungry. Easily accessible campsites, apiaries and dumpsters are
nothing more than convenient dining spots for these creatures. When
they decide to munch on whatever’s handy, they can do serious economic
damage and threaten people as well as livestock.



Mark Bruscino is a bear specialist with the Wyoming Game and Fish
Department. Bears are his constant problem. “They’re smart animals,:
he said, “they’ll find a way to get around most preventative
measures. They can knock down barriers and tunnel under most fences.”



“We have to keep them out of grain sheds, small garbage dumps and
dumpsters. Most of the things we tried in the early 1990’s didn’t
work,” he said.



In 1993 Morgan Renner, a Territory Manager with Gallagher, helped
design an electric fence to solve the problem. “I’m sold on it,” said
Bruscino as he talked about the fence. “It’s top notch stuff.”



The fence is “100% effective” when it’s maintained properly, according
to Bruscino.



The Game and Fish Department uses permanent and temporary Gallagher
fences now. The permanent fences are where bears are a constant
problem – around camp grounds, for instance. Temporary fences can be
quickly erected around sites like grain bins until the bear can be
captured and transported to a remote location.



“We use a five-wire fence with high tensile strength wire. Because it
can be very dry, we use alternating hot and ground wires to make sure
we’ve got full conductivity,” said Bruscino as he described the
permanent set up. Wooden corner posts anchor the fence and he uses
fiberglass posts to support the wire. The lower three wires are
spaced six inches apart and the top two wires have 10 inches between
them, making for a bear proof barrier.



Bruscino estimates bears have tested the fence hundreds of times
without successfully breaking through. “Usually, they just spin
around and take off,” he said. “I saw evidence that a bear swatted at
the wire once but all it did was stretch it out a bit.”



To prevent “tunneling” bears from going underground, Bruscino uses a
woven wire ground in some place. Stretching about three feet out from
the fence line, it’s additional discouragement to marauding beasts.



Bee keepers in the region sleep better at night and goat herds graze
unmolested. More importantly, campers can sleep safely at night, too,
with nothing between them and the night air but a few square yards of
canvas.



According to Erwin Quinn, president of Gallagher, “An electric fence
is a psychological barrier that keeps farm animals and wild animals
where they should be with safety and security. Because the fence is a
psychological barrier, it doesn’t require great strength to be
effective. However, it must be well designed in accordance with the
species to be controlled, and constructed to withstand the harsh
weather conditions that hit the Rockies in the dead of winter.”



The company, based in North Kansas City, Missouri, is one of the
world’s largest manufacturers of electric fences designed to contain
cattle, horses and other farm animals as well as prevent wild animals
and predators from gaining access to areas where they can do economic
damage.