California Wildlife Officers Humanely Euthanize Gray Wolves Following Livestock Attacks: Balancing Conservation and Agriculture

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In recent months, the Sierra Nevada mountains have witnessed a troubling uptick in livestock deaths, all attributed to the activities of wild gray wolves. This situation has forced California wildlife officials to take the drastic measure of eliminating some of these wolves, as announced on Friday.

“This decision was not made lightly nor was it easy,” expressed Charlton H. Bonham, director of California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), emphasizing the gravity of the situation in a Friday statement.

From March 28 to September 10, wolves belonging to the Beyem Seyo pack were implicated in the loss of 70 livestock animals in Sierra Valley. This accounted for a staggering 63% of all livestock losses in the state during that period, according to CDFW reports.

The department employed various non-lethal methods over several months in a bid to deter the wolves from preying on livestock. These efforts included deploying drones, firing non-lethal bean bag rounds, and utilizing all-terrain vehicles. Unfortunately, these strategies failed to yield the desired results.

“These wolves became habituated to cattle as a primary food source, a behavioral shift that threatens both livestock and the ecological integrity of wolf recovery,” the CDFW said.

Wildlife officers lethally removed a male and female breeding pair of wolves, another female, and another male. Additionally, a juvenile wolf that was mistaken for the breeding male was unintentionally killed, officials said. The remains of two additional juveniles from the Beyem Seyo this pack were found, but they apparently died before the adults were killed.

Gray wolves, native to California, were eradicated by the mid-1920s. Their return began with OR-7, a wolf from Oregon who entered California in late 2011.

The first packs were confirmed in Washington and Oregon in 2008, followed by California in 2015. By the end of 2024, wildlife officials counted 75 individual wolf pack territories across the three states.

FILE – This remote camera image provided by the U.S. Forest Service shows a female gray wolf and two of the three pups born in 2017 in the wilds of Lassen National Forest in northern California on June 29, 2017. (U.S. Forest Service via AP, File)

Officials say the decision to lethally remove wolves in this instance shouldn’t be viewed as a setback to the reintroduction program.

“Several things can be true simultaneously,” said Bonham. “Wolves are here in California and that is an amazing ecological return. Yet, their reemergence is a significant, disruptive change for rural communities. Wolves are one of the state’s most iconic species and coexistence is our collective future, but that comes with tremendous responsibility and sometimes hard decisions.”

According to the CDFW, California’s wolves primarily live in the northeast, with a single pack established in the southern Sierra Nevada.