Karoo farmer Eddie Steenkamp’s PAL collar, designed to protect sheep from caracals and jackals, was recently tested in the US, and has also drawn interest from Australia for reducing dingo attacks.
By Johan Coetsee
Losses to predators are a major challenge for livestock farmers, with predator management ranking among the most significant economic costs in the livestock and game industries.
Since 1994, Karoo farmer Eddie Steenkamp has been developing specialised neck collars to reduce caracal and jackal attacks on his ewes and lambs. His latest innovation, the spike collar, has shown remarkable results. Not only has it proved highly effective locally, but it was recently tested in the United States, where it successfully deterred coyotes. Now, interest is growing in Australia to trial it against dingoes. An invention born in the Karoo could soon be protecting livestock on two other continents.
Eddie farms on Doornboomsfontein near Beaufort West, sharing about 17 km of boundary fencing with the Karoo National Park. He has spent decades refining different collar designs to prevent jackal and caracal attacks. From 1986 to early 1994, he lost up to 250 lambs a year – sometimes as many as 60 in a single month. “I realised long ago that spring-traps weren’t the answer, and trying to control predators with guns was a losing battle,” he says.
In 1994, he began experimenting with collars tied around the necks of lambs and ewes to protect them from attack. At first, the collars reduced losses, but before long the jackals and caracals learnt to bite through them. Eddie knew he had a promising solution; it just needed refining into a truly effective deterrent.
Refining the Collar
Eddie found that his biggest losses occur each year from May to September, the lambing season. “That’s also when predators’ natural prey, such as mice and other small mammals, are relatively scarce. The main culprits were caracals, with jackals playing a smaller role.”
Caracals, which usually give birth in summer, also have young becoming independent at around four months old, coinciding with lambing season. “I researched the issue by reading scientific journals and consulting predator experts. This convinced me that losses could be reduced if I protected the territorial male and female caracals, as well as their natural prey. I wanted to avoid killing those individuals as far as possible.
“So my first step was to remove all spring-traps from the veld and fit sheep and lambs with collars made of 1mm high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Losses decreased for a while, but the collars weren’t strong enough – a caracal could bite through them.”
He then replaced the HDPE collars with 50mm-wide latex inner tube around the sheep’s necks. “The idea was that the ‘human-associated smell’ would deter predators. It worked, but only for a few months.”
Next, Eddie attached a bell (a small ball bearing inside a tin) to the inner-tube collar, using sound as a deterrent. “For about three years, this simple, inexpensive method worked well. Combined with good management practices, lamb losses dropped to acceptable levels.”
When he couldn’t find enough inner tube any more, he began making collars from polypropylene and added an odour pad so predators could detect an “unnatural” signal through sight, hearing and smell. He patented this as the Protect-A-Lamb (PAL) collar. The odour pad has since been discontinued for practical reasons.
Heavy lamb losses – sometimes continuing for several days – eventually forced him to try toxicant collars. These release about 8 ml of a 1% sodium fluoroacetate (1080) solution when bitten. The toxin dissolves quickly, and no secondary poisoning occurs, Eddie says. It proved effective in killing problem predators.
“This is only used as a temporary measure until lamb losses are under control, after which the bell collars work well again.”
Looking After Predators
Eddie noticed that predator damage often increased sharply after a large male or female – presumably a dominant animal – was killed. He suspects this creates a void that is quickly filled by a larger group of non-territorial animals, all of which need to eat, until another dominant individual eventually takes over the area.
“A territorial animal that causes minimal damage and relies mainly on natural prey is actually my ‘friend’, and I look after it,” he says.
To protect these territorial caracals, Eddie developed spike collars with reflectors. “When a predator eventually ignores all three sensory warnings – sight, sound and smell – and attacks a lamb or adult sheep, the spikes hurt its mouth so much that it is unlikely to make the same mistake again.”
The numbers speak for themselves. “Since 2013, I have not lost more than 10 to 13 lambs a year, and I use far fewer toxicant collars. My territorial caracals ‘work’ for me, and I don’t have to fire a single shot at a caracal or jackal.”
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Caracals Keep Jackal Numbers in Check
Eddie has found that caracals help keep jackal numbers under control. “I lose very few lambs to jackals on my farm in Beaufort Wests these days, and then only when the lambs are still very small – under 10kg–15 kg. However, I’m still running trials in areas where jackals remain the biggest problem, such as Namaqualand, the Kalahari, the Nama Karoo and the Free State.
“So far, the results look so promising that the National Wildlife Research Centre [which falls under the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)] has imported 400 of the collars to test on independent sheep flocks over two lambing seasons against coyotes at the US Meat Animal Research Center in Nebraska.”
How the Americans got involved
“In 2018, Dr Nico Avenant, a researcher at the National Museum in Bloemfontein, visited Doornboomsfontein with two Americans, David L. Bergman and Michael J. Bodenchuk, the state director of the USDA–APHIS Wildlife Services in Arizona and Texas, respectively. Nico has been following my research closely. The Americans’ interest stemmed from livestock losses caused by coyotes, foxes, mountain lions and feral dogs.”
In 2023, the Americans contacted Eddie again, via Nico, to discuss running trials with his collars. “We agreed, and I sent them 400 bell-and-spike collars.”
The data has already been analysed. Lamb survival rates in groups wearing the collars – and, to some extent, in mixed groups where only some lambs wore them – were significantly higher than in groups without collars. Eddie has now also received enquiries from Australia.
“This is the first time in 30 years that independent research has linked the success of my products to measurable value, showing they can offer reasonable financial benefit and peace of mind for the average farmer.”
In the meantime, Eddie is also working on helping lambs reach the safer 15 kg threshold faster using special lamb feeders and feed pellets. “Above 15 kg, they’re stronger and more resilient against jackals. The added benefit is that the ewes can wean faster, regain body condition and be mated again.”
Contact: Eddie Steenkamp, email: e.l.steenkamp@intekom.co.za, 082 778 7775, Facebook: Protect-a-Lamb
Nico Avenant, email: navenant@nasmus.co.za
