Petros Chrysafis Shows Central Californians How to Avoid Wildlife Conflict
All communities would benefit from their own Petros C.
Catching a glimpse out a kitchen window to the backyard of a robin enjoying a bird bath, a cottontail rabbit racing through the garden or a mule deer munching on the grass delights homeowners.
But not all wildlife is welcome in what humans consider their home space. Knowing coyotes are in the ‘hood may generate fear for the pet owner. Ranchers and farmers have concerns about wildlife eating their livestock — aka their financial investments. In Malibu, California, a mountain lion was identified as the killer of 10 alpaca and a number of other farm animals in 2016. That put a bounty on his head.
As humans have paved over, built out and expanded across the land that is known as the United States, less and less space is left for other life forms. Habitat loss is the primary reason for the drop in wildlife numbers. The U.S. population is an overpopulated 333 million and growing — with Joe Biden, if his regime remains in office for the full four years, potentially adding 8 million people through unrestricted mass illegal immigration. Against this backdrop, there are unlimited opportunities for human-wildlife conflict.
The founder of Predator Detection and Deterrence, Petros Chrysafis is an independent human-wildlife conflict specialist who works with ranchers and livestock holders to address carnivore coexistence in Central California and the Central Sierra Nevada, an area which includes a variety of landscapes — agricultural lands with almond trees and grapevines, old growth forest, chaparral oak forest, urban space (Fresno), grassland and shrubland. “Each of the landscapes poses its own unique challenges,” says Chrysafis. But the ultimate goal is to tackle human-wildlife conflict using nonlethal deterrence measures. Chrysafis has worked on resolving problems with mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, black bears, raptors, woodpeckers, feral pigs and foxes. With California’s human population now at nearly 40 million, there is ample opportunity for problems.
A native of Cypress in the Mediterranean Sea, and a graduate of the University of Aberdeen and California State University, Fresno, Chrysafis’ grounding is in zoology and biology. In his California work since 2017, the biggest sources of conflict he’s seen are between livestock and wildlife, and pets and wildlife, but also food sources — gardens and fruit trees — generate problems for people who don’t want to see all their fruit eaten by bears and their gardens by other critters.
Once Chrysafis is approached about a conflict situation, he has an initial communication to assess the case. “Sometimes it’s a matter of putting someone at ease,” letting a person know there are other options besides killing an animal, says Chrysafis. With Ring cameras and camera traps, now people can more easily understand, for example, that the mountain lion they saw was just passing through their property. Chrysafis is particularly fond of camera traps: “Every time I check them it’s like Christmas morning.”
If more is needed by the stakeholder, Chrysafis may conduct a field visit, analyze a carcass to provide an opinion as to what may have happened and may recommend calling in wildlife services, depending on the situation. If there is interest in working with him, he’ll work on developing the relationship and offering recommendations on all options, including deploying monitoring equipment (camera traps), reviewing animal tracks and creating a deterrence plan based on the habitat and area species, as well as preparing a long-term coexistence plan that the stakeholder can manage. Deterrence measures might include foxlights — computerized flashing lights — fencing, guard dogs and weatherproof radios loaded with podcasts (the human voices keep animals away). Even hot sauce and cayenne pepper worked to deter a bobcat, Chrysafis says. If the animal leaves the problem site or if there’s no depredation, the deterrence plan has worked.
Chrysafis is also exploring the idea of household scents and how they can be used to deter. “The idea here,” he says, “is we want the animals to think there is a human on site.” He’s used detergents, soap bars and other human products, sometimes combined with fox lights or noises — enough to make the animals think there’s a human in the area, with promising results from five participating ranches — no depredation for two years. Chrysafis is, however, being cautious in evaluating data before he makes any proclamations.
Unfortunately, the number who want to minimize human-wildlife conflict through nonlethal ways appears to remain a minority. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services reported killing 404,538 native animals. Among the ongoing challenges Chrysafis has faced are accessibility — it’s hard to reach stakeholders for a variety of reasons. Farmers and ranchers may be suspicious of camera traps, may be generally distrustful, have misinformation (for instance, a common myth is that “coyotes are luring dogs out to kill them”) and a lack of knowledge of the law, among other barriers for positive discussion.
Chrysafis nonetheless believes that the “mindset is changing slowly on coexistence” and that sharing what methods work across cities, states and the world is important. He’s had multiple successes in his work to date, including a woman who was “terrified of coyotes.” But after Chrysafis set up cameras, eventually he put her in charge of cameras, and she grew to like the coyotes — even naming them. Two learnings for Chrysafis: “Give the stakeholder the tools to monitor themselves,” and “Tackling misconceptions is easier to address when practical methods are employed.”
He adds, “Community involvement is valuable, and gentle pressure and direct discussion yield better results.” But even so, “Conflicts can sometimes be inevitable.”
Chrysafis currently is a one-man show, working a particular geographic range in California. But perhaps his work to reduce human-wildlife conflict will inspire others to follow his path, or maybe eventually he’ll be able to create a team at Predator Detection and Deterrence to work multiple states.
In the interim, the nonprofit organization, American Prairie, sponsors a program for landowners and ranchers to support wildlife friendly practices, “Cameras for Conservation.” Participating landowners install camera traps on their property to capture wildlife images, which provide valuable data to American Prairie that aids in directing their research and guiding management decisions. In exchange, American Prairie pays the landowner for the images, depending on the species. The hope is that the partnerships with the landowners will encourage greater tolerance of wildlife on their lands and highlight the importance of wildlife habitat for working ranchland.
Other organizations committed to promoting coexistence include Defenders of Wildlife, the International Wildlife Coexistence Network and Project Coyote.
Catching a glimpse out a kitchen window to the backyard of a robin enjoying a bird bath, a cottontail rabbit racing through the garden or a mule deer munching on the grass delights homeowners.
But not all wildlife is welcome in what humans consider their home space. Knowing coyotes are in the ‘hood may generate fear for the pet owner. Ranchers and farmers have concerns about wildlife eating their livestock — aka their financial investments. In Malibu, California, a mountain lion was identified as the killer of 10 alpaca and a number of other farm animals in 2016. That put a bounty on his head.
As humans have paved over, built out and expanded across the land that is known as the United States, less and less space is left for other life forms. Habitat loss is the primary reason for the drop in wildlife numbers. The U.S. population is an overpopulated 333 million and growing — with Joe Biden, if his regime remains in office for the full four years, potentially adding 8 million people through unrestricted mass illegal immigration. Against this backdrop, there are unlimited opportunities for human-wildlife conflict.
The founder of Predator Detection and Deterrence, Petros Chrysafis is an independent human-wildlife conflict specialist who works with ranchers and livestock holders to address carnivore coexistence in Central California and the Central Sierra Nevada, an area which includes a variety of landscapes — agricultural lands with almond trees and grapevines, old growth forest, chaparral oak forest, urban space (Fresno), grassland and shrubland. “Each of the landscapes poses its own unique challenges,” says Chrysafis. But the ultimate goal is to tackle human-wildlife conflict using nonlethal deterrence measures. Chrysafis has worked on resolving problems with mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, black bears, raptors, woodpeckers, feral pigs and foxes. With California’s human population now at nearly 40 million, there is ample opportunity for problems.
A native of Cypress in the Mediterranean Sea, and a graduate of the University of Aberdeen and California State University, Fresno, Chrysafis’ grounding is in zoology and biology. In his California work since 2017, the biggest sources of conflict he’s seen are between livestock and wildlife, and pets and wildlife, but also food sources — gardens and fruit trees — generate problems for people who don’t want to see all their fruit eaten by bears and their gardens by other critters.
Once Chrysafis is approached about a conflict situation, he has an initial communication to assess the case. “Sometimes it’s a matter of putting someone at ease,” letting a person know there are other options besides killing an animal, says Chrysafis. With Ring cameras and camera traps, now people can more easily understand, for example, that the mountain lion they saw was just passing through their property. Chrysafis is particularly fond of camera traps: “Every time I check them it’s like Christmas morning.”
If more is needed by the stakeholder, Chrysafis may conduct a field visit, analyze a carcass to provide an opinion as to what may have happened and may recommend calling in wildlife services, depending on the situation. If there is interest in working with him, he’ll work on developing the relationship and offering recommendations on all options, including deploying monitoring equipment (camera traps), reviewing animal tracks and creating a deterrence plan based on the habitat and area species, as well as preparing a long-term coexistence plan that the stakeholder can manage. Deterrence measures might include foxlights — computerized flashing lights — fencing, guard dogs and weatherproof radios loaded with podcasts (the human voices keep animals away). Even hot sauce and cayenne pepper worked to deter a bobcat, Chrysafis says. If the animal leaves the problem site or if there’s no depredation, the deterrence plan has worked.
Chrysafis is also exploring the idea of household scents and how they can be used to deter. “The idea here,” he says, “is we want the animals to think there is a human on site.” He’s used detergents, soap bars and other human products, sometimes combined with fox lights or noises — enough to make the animals think there’s a human in the area, with promising results from five participating ranches — no depredation for two years. Chrysafis is, however, being cautious in evaluating data before he makes any proclamations.
Unfortunately, the number who want to minimize human-wildlife conflict through nonlethal ways appears to remain a minority. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services reported killing 404,538 native animals. Among the ongoing challenges Chrysafis has faced are accessibility — it’s hard to reach stakeholders for a variety of reasons. Farmers and ranchers may be suspicious of camera traps, may be generally distrustful, have misinformation (for instance, a common myth is that “coyotes are luring dogs out to kill them”) and a lack of knowledge of the law, among other barriers for positive discussion.
Chrysafis nonetheless believes that the “mindset is changing slowly on coexistence” and that sharing what methods work across cities, states and the world is important. He’s had multiple successes in his work to date, including a woman who was “terrified of coyotes.” But after Chrysafis set up cameras, eventually he put her in charge of cameras, and she grew to like the coyotes — even naming them. Two learnings for Chrysafis: “Give the stakeholder the tools to monitor themselves,” and “Tackling misconceptions is easier to address when practical methods are employed.”
He adds, “Community involvement is valuable, and gentle pressure and direct discussion yield better results.” But even so, “Conflicts can sometimes be inevitable.”
Chrysafis currently is a one-man show, working a particular geographic range in California. But perhaps his work to reduce human-wildlife conflict will inspire others to follow his path, or maybe eventually he’ll be able to create a team at Predator Detection and Deterrence to work multiple states.
In the interim, the nonprofit organization, American Prairie, sponsors a program for landowners and ranchers to support wildlife friendly practices, “Cameras for Conservation.” Participating landowners install camera traps on their property to capture wildlife images, which provide valuable data to American Prairie that aids in directing their research and guiding management decisions. In exchange, American Prairie pays the landowner for the images, depending on the species. The hope is that the partnerships with the landowners will encourage greater tolerance of wildlife on their lands and highlight the importance of wildlife habitat for working ranchland.
Other organizations committed to promoting coexistence include Defenders of Wildlife, the International Wildlife Coexistence Network and Project Coyote.
Listen to Petros Chrysafis, presented by the Wolf Conservation center, here.
