Deterring and repelling wildlife

This chapter provides general operating procedures (GOPs) and guidelines for a variety of non-lethal techniques, which seek to interrupt, reduce or modify the behaviour of wildlife to decrease the occurrence of ‘unwanted’ or ‘undesirable’ behaviours. In Australia such methods are mostly employed for threatened species protection as part of introduced predator management, and for protecting agricultural interests from wildlife (e.g. to keep carnivores from attacking livestock, or kangaroos from accessing grazing land). However, non-lethal techniques as described in this chapter can be applied to a multitude of management and research contexts (e.g. to protect humans from shark attack). Methods covered include guardian animals, disruptive stimuli (frightening devices, lights, sounds), conditioned taste aversion (odours and chemicals) and electric deterrents (fences, shields, collars). These guidelines are written to be complementary to each other given the overlap in many themes that exist across the techniques. A great deal of the literature referred to is drawn from international sources where many of the problems, solutions and ethical implications are similar.