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In one of the more surreal twists in wildlife management, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is now using audio from Noah Baumbach’s 2019 film Marriage Story—specifically, the emotionally raw fight between Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver—as a tool to scare off wolves. According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, the USDA has deployed drones equipped with thermal cameras and loudspeakers to patrol areas like the Klamath Basin in southern Oregon, where livestock have been under increasing threat from gray wolves.
The method, called “wolf hazing,” blasts distressing sounds such as fireworks, gunshots, AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck,” and yes, the heated argument between Johansson and Driver’s characters. The USDA’s rationale? To convince wolves that humans are dangerous. “I need the wolves to respond and know that, hey, humans are bad,” a USDA district supervisor in Oregon explained to the WSJ.
This unusual tactic emerged after a series of livestock killings: 11 cows were slaughtered by wolves in just 20 days. In the 85 days that followed the implementation of drone patrols, only two cows were lost. The dramatic drop suggests that the strategy is working—at least for now.
The use of sound to deter wolves isn’t new, but the inclusion of a film clip so charged with human pain and emotion is. In Marriage Story, Johansson and Driver play a couple unraveling during a bitter custody battle, and their fight scene is a crescendo of rage, heartbreak, and helplessness. It earned both actors Oscar nominations and became one of the film’s most talked-about moments. Now it’s echoing across rural farmland, not in theaters or living rooms, but as a line of defense against one of nature’s top predators.
Drones have become a critical tool in this effort, particularly because gray wolves remain protected under the Endangered Species Act. This limits the use of lethal means and forces wildlife managers to get creative. Still, the drone strategy has drawbacks: limited flight range, battery failures, and the risk that wolves may eventually grow accustomed to the noise.
Yet for now, it’s working—and Marriage Story, a movie that dissected modern divorce with surgical precision, is playing an unlikely supporting role in rural livestock protection. A film about human separation has become, oddly enough, a symbol of human presence—loud, chaotic, and effective at keeping predators at bay.
