Llamas are a domestic form of the so-called New World cameleids. Due to their innate aversion to all forms of canids, they have been successfully situated as herd protection animals in the USA, Canada, Australia and to some extent in Great Britain for over thirty years. They protect the herds against cojotes, dingoes, stray dogs, lynxes and other canids. In Switzerland, llamas are mainly active in Valais to protect herds against lynxes. A project to test their effectiveness against wolves has been ongoing since 2012. In case of danger llamas emit a warning signal and position themselves between the herd and the aggressor, which the will then attack if necessary. This behaviour can definitely be effective against individual wolves. The advantages of protecting herds through llamas are numerous. They are resilient animals that need little care, do not bark and don’t attack people, as unfortunately is widely documented. Sometimes they act as protection dogs.
They share their food with grazing sheep, in winter they can be kept toghether. They do not require a long and expensive training and the life cycle, calculated in years is much longer than for dogs. They integrate quite quickly into a new herd.