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As predators reclaim more of their historic range, land managers, livestock producers, conservation groups, and government agencies must find solution-oriented approaches to minimizing conflict. While nonlethal deterrents and coexistence methods are proving effective, there are a variety of obstacles to successful implementation. Obstacles include conflicting management objectives between agencies with overlapping jurisdiction, fear of litigation, resistance to provide guidance to other permitted users, and a lack of flexibility to implement management tools and methods not previously identified in forest or allotment management plans. Certain policies, such as the non-essential experimental designation of the Mexican gray wolf, impede the use of nonlethal deterrents because interpretation of the rule has made wolf recovery a lower priority than other permitted land uses. Personnel changes within agencies, ranch ownership and conservation organizations make it difficult to achieve and maintain the necessary levels of trust. Removal of wolves, lethal or nonlethal, can lead to destabilized pack social structure which may result in an increase in depredations associated with naïve wolves and may require ranch managers and herders to relearn pack behaviors and adjust livestock management strategies accordingly. Identity-based conflicts between ranchers and other stakeholders can make problems less about wolves and livestock and more about who controls federal land and natural resources. Lack of familiarity with tools and techniques, as well as fear of being ostracized within communities also influence the success of nonlethal conflict avoidance projects. Finally, funding for nonlethal deterrents and conflict avoidance strategies is often a leading obstacle to implementation. Community-based partnerships offer great promise to overcoming most obstacles, but they must work within a larger, robust nationwide program to provide performance-based payments for ecosystem services and offset the costs of adopting new tools and technology to improve agricultural production. The Agriculture Act may be such a source.