Predator Friendly Ranching
Story and Photography by Louise Liebenberg
8 / Sport and Trail Magazine
"I feel strongly that we can co-exist with our wild neighbors. It is possible, with management, to live with predators," Louise Liebenberg.
I was raised in South Africa. At the age of 15 I began looking toward the farming life. I bought myself a sheepdog and decided I needed sheep to work the dog on. I began spending all my free time on friend's farms, learning about sheep and cows and working my collie. My husband, Eric, also came from a non agricultural family, and he spent his free time working on dairy farms. He, too, started a small flock of sheep and grazed them on a vacant piece of land.
We met in 1990 and began our life together. We started a grazing company working for
Louise Liebenberg, along with her husband, Eric Verstappen, established a ranch in Canada in 2008. Theirs is the first ranch in Canada to be certified "Predator Friendly and Wildlife Friendly".