Gray wolves were hunted nearly to extinction across the U.S. West before reintroduction efforts in the mid-1990s led to population recovery in many regions. The recovering wolf population has increased conflicts with ranchers and prompted adoption of electrified fencing, wolf alarms, guard dogs, horseback patrols, trapping, relocation, and lethal control where nonlethal methods fail. Biologists near the California-Oregon border are testing drones equipped with loudspeakers and thermal cameras to haze wolves with music, movie clips and live human voices and to monitor nocturnal predator activity. A preliminary USDA study found that adding human voices via loudspeaker can increase the effectiveness of drone hazing.
Gray wolves were hunted nearly to extinction throughout the U.S. West by the first half of the 20th century. Since their reintroduction in Idaho and at Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s, they've proliferated to the point that a population in the Northern Rockies has been removed from the endangered species list. There are now hundreds of wolves in Washington and Oregon, dozens more in northern California, and thousands roaming near the Great Lakes.
But a team of biologists working near the California-Oregon border do, and they're using them to blast AC/DC's "Thunderstruck," movie clips and live human voices at the apex predators to shoo them away from cattle in an ongoing experiment. "I am not putting up with this anymore!" actor Scarlett Johansson yells in one clip, from the 2019 film " Marriage Story." "With what? I can't talk to people?" co-star Adam Driver shouts back.
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