California research looks at indirect economic impact of cattle and wolf conflicts
During the 56th Annual Public Lands Council Meeting, held Sept. 17-19 in Grand Junction, Colo., University of California-Davis (UC Davis) Professors Dr. Kenneth Tate and Dr. Tina Saitone discussed a research project and pilot compensation program regarding the indirect economic impacts of cattle and wolf conflicts in California.
“I know many of you have been living with gray wolves for much longer than we have in California so this presentation is going to be couched in the experience we have in a state where populations are developing and expanding rapidly,” Saitone began.
“Our state’s compensation program is the first of its kind and was started as a pilot, so I would like to share some of the experience we have had with it and the lessons that can be learned in other states moving forward,” she added.
California gray wolves
To start, Saitone explained wolves were reintroduced to California from Oregon in 2011, and in addition to being listed on the federal Endangered Species Act, wolves are also protected at the state level through the California Endangered Species Act.
Since their return, Saitone noted the gray wolf population has continued to grow exponentially in terms of animal number and geographic extent.
In fact, when UC Davis started their research roughly two years ago, only two packs were recognized in the state, Saitone noted.
Today, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), there are seven known packs in the state, including the Beyem Seyo, Harvey, Lassen, Whaleback, Yowlumni, Antelope and Unnamed packs, made up of roughly 45 total wolves.
“If we look at Oregon as a harbinger of population growth, we see in 2013 they had about 62 wolves, and in 2023 the population had more than doubled. This is a sign of what we might expect in our state,” Saitone said.
She also noted California has already started to see their wolf packs overlap, cohabitate and expand their territory all the way from the northern tip of the state to south of the Cascades.
Wolf and cattle conflict
As with all wolf reintroductions, Saitone mentioned there was some discourse among individuals when wolves first entered California regarding conflict with livestock.
This prompted the UC Davis research project, which used a traditional study design to follow six herds in northern California affected by wolves. Originally, the study compared three control herds with no wolf presence to three herds with known wolf presence, but as the population grew and expanded, all herds were affected and the study had to adapt.
Tate explained, prior to summer turnout, randomly-chosen cows from each herd were fitted with a GPS collar, which recorded date, time and spatial position at five-minute intervals to track cattle performance and grazing behavior.
At this time, researchers also collected tail hair samples, which were compared to samples collected again at the end of the grazing season to compare hair cortisol concentrations – a non-invasive indicator of long-term stress in animals.
The study also used hundreds of game cameras to track animal movement and fecal sample collection to confirm the presence of wolves on the landscape and understand what they were eating.
“During the 2022 grazing season, we collected 59 confirmed wolf scat samples and found 86 percent of those samples included cattle DNA,” Tate said. “During the second year, we had 42 confirmed wolf scat samples and 57 percent of those included cattle DNA.”
Ultimately, all of the data collected was used to quantify the indirect impacts of wolf presence in cattle herds.
“One thing we have consistently observed in our study is that there is conflict,” Saitone said. “Pictures from our game cameras show cattle running from a single wolf in the Harvey Pack, a yearling being chased by two wolves from the Lassen Pack and a set of cows being dogged in the middle of the night by a whole pack of wolves.”
“Whether it is direct lethal depredation or indirect impacts like being dogged during the night, all of these conflicts have economic consequences, which is the focus of our study,” she continued.
Saitone noted some of the indirect economic loss observed in the study include reduced weaning weights, reduced body condition score of cows, lower conception rates, increased instance of abortion and increased time and labor to check on cattle more frequently, move cattle out of areas with high wolf activity, sort cattle that mix and fix fence cattle have been ran through.
“We have also had a lot of ranchers who will leave forage behind – whether they leave an allotment early or forego grazing altogether – because wolves are in the area and they would rather feed hay at home than feed the wolves their calves,” Saitone said. “There is also the cost of stress and emotional turmoil producers face when dealing with predators on a daily basis.”
Compensation program
The impacts felt by California producers led to the creation of a compensation pilot program – the Wolf Conflict Program (WCP) – with an initial $3 million allocated in the 2021-22 California State Budget.
Saitone explained the pilot program, which is the first of its kind, included a three-pronged approach, compensating producers for direct losses due to wolf kills, payout for presence of wolves and reimbursement for nonlethal deterrent tools.
Although a payout system for indirect losses is certainly progressive, Saitone and Tate shared the WCP comes with its fair share of issues and hope other states interested in implementing something similar can learn from their mistakes.
First, Saitone noted, despite months spent in stakeholder meetings to help inform CDFW in the development of the program, the department seemingly excluded the majority of the stakeholder committee’s input.
“Another one of the things we learned from this program is the advisory committee’s review of applications was lacking because the department has little understanding of ranching and they don’t understand what ranchers may or may not do to try and deter wolves,” she said. “There were things they paid for many of us would agree have no effect on protecting cattle from wolves, and they didn’t pay for others that may have had an impact.”
One of the most frustrating issues Saitone and Tate ran into was the lack of data from collared wolves.
“The program was designed to use GPS collar data from wolves, but at the time, we only had three active collared wolves to represent the movement of nearly 40 wolves,” she said. “As one might anticipate, it is really hard to establish where wolves are if we don’t have GPS collars. So, ranchers weren’t able to access pay for presence funds even though they had wolves impacting their cattle on a daily basis.”
In the future, Saitone said she hopes to see improved communication between stakeholders, better funding application tracking, increased staffing levels and more available CDFW data.
“In the 2024-25 budget, we were successful in getting another $600,000 and are currently working to have the money directed toward lethal compensation for confirmed kills,” she noted. “With our budget status being so bleak in our state right now, we don’t think these funds are sufficient to adequately compensate all ranchers, but we hope it will provide some relief of economic burden for those experiencing direct losses.”
Hannah Bugas is the managing editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. Send comments on this article to roundup@wylr.net.
