Five wolves in Northern California were killed this month by the state’s wildlife agency, which cited increasing attacks on livestock.
The wolves were part of the Beyem Seyo pack in the Sierra Valley, north of Truckee, said a news release last week by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The “lethal removal” came after months of efforts to address livestock killing in the area, the agency said.
“This decision was not made lightly nor was it easy,” said CDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham in the news release. “Despite extensive non-lethal efforts, including hazing and adaptive tools used by our Summer Strike Team, these wolves continued to prey on livestock. The situation with this pack is far outside any comparable experience across the state or the West, making the long-term recovery of gray wolves much harder.”
The wolves killed were a breeding pair and two other adults, plus a juvenile that was mistaken for an adult and killed accidentally.
The agency says the Beyem Seyo wolves killed 70 livestock animals between March 28 and Sept. 10 — 63% of the total livestock losses to wolves in California during that period.
Wildlife managers used tactics including drones, beanbags, diversionary feeding, deterrent fences and round-the-clock field presence, but the wolves persisted in killing cattle, the DFW said.
The remaining juveniles will be captured and put in wildlife facilities to prevent their learned behavior from spreading to other packs, the agency said.
Gray wolves were wiped out in California a century ago but in 2011 began to move in from Oregon. Their California population has grown from about seven in 2019 to between 50 and 70, most in the northeast part of the state, the wildlife agency says.
This year, state wildlife officials announced that the increasing population warranted the relaxing of rules protecting the species. They indicated changes would allow ranchers and other rural property owners to obtain permits for more aggressive methods to drive off wolves, including chasing them with vehicles and firing rubber bullets.
Battles over wolves’ presence have also sprung up in other states. This month, Colorado was told by the Trump administration to stop bringing in gray wolves from Canada as part of a reintroduction effort approved by voters in 2020.
The federal Fish and Wildlife Service said Colorado wolves must come from Northern Rockies states — but most of those states have said they don’t want to be part of the Colorado program.