Sierra Valley rancher Rick Roberti appealed to the Plumas County Board of Supervisors Feb. 11 to support local ranchers. Their businesses are losing as much as $50,000 a year, he said. The culprit: wolves.
“I don’t know what to do anymore when a neighbor calls to tell me he’s been devastated by wolves,” he said.
Roberti, who represents the Sierra Cattlemen’s Association, serves on an ad hoc committee formed by the board of supervisors in July, 2024, to work with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife on wolf management. Supervisor Dwight Ceresola, also a Sierra Valley rancher, suggested the committee and serves on it, as does Supervisor Kevin Goss of Greenville. They represent the Plumas County districts most heavily impacted by wolves.
“We have well over 100 wolves in Plumas County but you won’t hear that from CDFW,” Roberti said. CFWD confirmed a conservative minimum of 36 wolves statewide in November.
Influx of wolves
Wolves began multiplying in the northern Sierra Nevada after 2011, when OR-7 left his pack in Oregon on a 15-month jaunt through the mountains of California before returning to Oregon. A young male seeking a mate, OR-7 was the first confirmed wolf in California since 1924. Because scientists had equipped him with a satellite collar, they could track his 1,000-mile journey throughout northern California. By 2014, OR-7 had found a mate and settled in the Rogue River watershed east of Medford, Oregon.
Gray wolves have been moving into California ever since in what scientists call a natural pattern of dispersal and recolonization. The state now hosts seven wolf packs, down from the nine reported a few months ago after several packs merged. Five of those packs are in Plumas and neighboring Sierra and Lassen counties. CDFW officials also report an unknown number of individual wolves that have dispersed from packs or adjacent states.
Wolves are an apex predator. They occupy the top of the food chain, where they play a vital role in healthy ecosystems. Wildlife biologists consider the presence of this California native species crucial to maintaining deer, elk and other wildlife populations. Wolves are a protected species under the federal Endangered Species Act. They enjoy added protections in California, including designation as a Species of Greatest Conservation Need through the State Wildlife Action Plan. CDFW strives to conserve gray wolf populations for their ecological and intrinsic values, said Axel Hunnicutt, the agency’s statewide gray wolf coordinator. The department closely monitors the overall population for conservation and research, management and conflict mitigation, he added.
Wolves have been polarizing wherever they have settled and formed packs. The challenge for California’s wolf management program is to balance the conflicting interests of ranchers like Roberti with the California Wolf Foundation and other organizations actively working to increase protections for wolves.
Because the Plumas County area hosts the largest population of wolves in the state, local ranchers and their business operations have been particularly hard hit by the effects of living with wolves. In 2024, CDFW investigated over 70 reports of wolves killing livestock statewide. Officials confirmed 21 wolf kills between May and September, 2024; seven were in the Plumas area.
“We are business people. We’re losing money and we can’t do anything about it.”
Rick Roberti, Sierra Valley rancher
A state program allows ranchers to be compensated for their livestock losses, but they are only paid for confirmed kills. Even when they do not kill livestock, the presence of wolves puts stress on cattle, Roberti said. They lose weight, which makes them less valuable. “Wolves are not going to wipe out every rancher,” Roberti said, but they are exacting a heavy price on their bottom lines.
“We are business people. We’re losing money and we can’t do anything about it,” he told the county supervisors.
Roberti and his fellow ranchers are an important component of the county’s business sector representing around 8% of the employment. The value of the livestock they produce and sell totals nearly $6 million annually, according to the most recent census data reporting this information.
Wildlife in decline?
The ad hoc committee formed by the board of supervisors was specifically tasked with working on wolf management, but the supervisors also asked it to consider other wildlife species. None are doing well, Roberti said. And that is having an effect on hunting, which draws tourists and stimulates the local economy.
He described the toll the increasingly large local wolf population is taking: “The deer herd is basically gone and we won’t have an elk herd shortly.”
A bi-state study of the Loyalton-Tahoe mule deer herd, which includes Plumas County, found critical summer and winter ranges, fawning areas and migratory corridors all disrupted by fire, development, roads and highways. Its conservative estimate found the herd of around 3,200 animals “stable to declining.”
In addition to the direct effects on ranchers and those who come here to hunt, Roberti noted the intangible effects on Plumas County. “We’re losing something so vital to our community. Hunting is one of the reasons people come here,” said Roberti.
Tracking collars
Much of what scientists understand about California’s wolves comes from tracking individuals they have managed to capture and equip with satellite collars. That allows researchers to trace the animals’ movements. In January, CDFW biologists collared and released 12 gray wolves in northern California. They also recorded body measurements and collected biological samples, including DNA and blood. Those samples allow CDFW to monitor wolves for diseases and to determine the relatedness of individuals and packs, officials said. California now has 18 satellite-collared wolves, more than ever before. That is expected to improve understanding and management of the species in the state, said Hunnicutt.
Knowing the location of these collared wolves will help mitigate conflict with livestock, Honnicutt said. Roberti gets a daily report of wolves close to his ranch. He does not, however, support collaring all wolves, he said.
“We wouldn’t be able to do what we have to do sometimes,” he said, “and it’s not worth going to jail for shooting a wolf.”
Killing a wolf in California can result in a fine of up to $100,000, jail time and loss of hunting privileges. State officials have attributed the disappearance of some individual wolves to unlawful shootings. The Shasta pack, California’s first in over a century, disappeared from Siskiyou County in 2015, three and a half years after being identified. The pack’s fate remains uncertain, but the possibilities include poaching, dispersal or natural death, state officials said. They have investigated numerous additional reports of poaching with inconclusive results.
In 2020, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a $2,500 reward for the unlawful shooting of a radio-collared wolf, OR-59, that had traveled to California from Oregon in December, 2018. The Center for Biological Diversity, a staunch advocate of wolf protection, added $5,000 to the reward. To date no one has been convicted.
Avenues for advocacy
Despite a program for wolf management within the CDFW, Roberti said California is “way behind” in offering any meaningful controls. He and other ranchers have used nonlethal deterrent tools offered by state wolf managers. Among them are radio-activated guard devices, Foxlights and fladry flags strung on fence lines to deter wolves. But Roberti’s frustration has grown with the expanding wolf population.
“As a rancher, I‘d like to see them take out the bad wolves… That’s a way to manage them… When it gets out of control it’s too late,” Roberti said.
He suggested that the effect of wolves on the deer herd is one way ranchers might get the state to focus on the consequences of the wolf population on the Plumas County economy. Plumas County Sheriff Todd Johns agreed, adding that county officials might work with the California State Association of Counties. CSAC has the ability to petition state legislators to urge action to support ranchers dealing with wolves, said Johns.
“There needs to be a balance. We can’t afford to lose our ranchers.”
Todd Johns, Plumas County sheriff
“There needs to be a balance. We can’t afford to lose our ranchers,” he said.
Goss, the board of supervisors chair, said the supervisors would write a letter to the California Fish and Game Commission advocating for ranchers’ ability to protect their herds and their livelihoods from wolves. Supervisor Tom McGowan endorsed Johns’ idea of using CSAC as a vehicle to bring pressure on state officials.
Roberti did not object to the proposals. But after years of living with wolves, he said, “I’m way past common sense suggestions. If you want, send a letter to the governor.”
In a related discussion, the Plumas supervisors sent a letter to the California Fish and Game Commission opposing any change in state rules that would limit hunting coyotes. In January, the commission considered a recommendation to curtail ranchers’ ability to manage coyote populations to prevent livestock depredation. Before making a decision, the Plumas board asked the commissioners to recognize ranchers’ perspectives and concerns, and consider the importance of using hunting to protect their herds from coyotes.
