CDFW News

CDFW Initiates Process to Evaluate Wolf-Livestock Compensation Program

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 16:50:26 GMT

Media Note: Graphic and photos available for download

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) has started a process to evaluate California’s Wolf-Livestock Compensation Program (WLCP).

On Monday, Feb. 23, 2026, CDFW held an initial meeting with a group of stakeholder representatives previously involved in the development of the wolf-livestock program.

This meeting marked the first step in a broader public process that will gather input and perspectives from key stakeholder groups involved in livestock production, wolf conservation, research and government agencies, as well as from the public in the coming year. This process will include a rancher survey to garner input, as well as a series of rancher workshops and public meetings to gather a broad base of input on any adjustments to potential future funding, if appropriated by the Legislature and Administration.

This first meeting focused on how best to provide a public process to evaluate potential adjustments to future applications and funding opportunities. This effort relates to potential future WLCP funding, if appropriated by the California legislature and Administration.

CDFW recognizes that the WLCP affects a wide range of interests and will work in the coming months to ensure a broad swath of ranchers, communities, and interested parties are able to provide their input. As always, CDFW welcomes input on current and potential future programs at any time at wolfcompensation@wildlife.ca.gov.

Participants in this initial meeting included representatives from the California Farm Bureau, California Cattlemen’s Association, Western Landowners Alliance, California Wool Growers Association, Rural County Representatives of California (RCRC), University of California Cooperative Extension, University of California, Berkeley, Defenders of Wildlife, the California Wolf Foundation, the California Center for Biological Diversity, Working Circle, USDA APHIS Wildlife Services, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

CDFW will continue working with these groups, as well as ranchers, and communities as the evaluation process moves forward.

Since its inception as a pilot program in 2021, CDFW’s Wolf-Livestock Compensation Program has paid out more than $3.5 million to livestock producers whose operations have been impacted by the return of gray wolves to California.

For more information about the evaluation process, timeline and opportunities to participate please visit CDFW’s Wolf Livestock Compensation Grants webpage.

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Media Contact:  
Steve Gonzalez, CDFW Communications, (916) 804-1714

CDFW Captures and Collars 5 Gray Wolves in Northern California

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 13:08:46 GMT

Media Note: Download Capture Photos and Video

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) recently completed helicopter capture operations resulting in the satellite collaring of five gray wolves in northern California.

Operations occurred between Jan. 12 and 20 in Lassen, Modoc, Shasta, Siskiyou and Tehama counties. The wolves collared were associated with the Whaleback and Harvey packs.

Immediately after capture, each wolf was flown to a nearby field processing site and fitted with a satellite/VHF collar. CDFW veterinary and biological staff also collected standard biological data, including body measurements, DNA and blood samples. These data allow CDFW to monitor wolf health, screen for disease and assess genetic relatedness among individuals and packs. After collaring, each wolf was released on public land as close as practical to its capture location.

The five wolves collared during the operation included:

An adult male captured in northern Lassen County that was born into the Whaleback pack. Following release, collar data showed that the wolf returned to its natal Whaleback pack.
A previously collared, dispersing adult male from the Harvey pack that was captured in Modoc County. Its collar was replaced.
A Harvey pack female born in 2024 and captured in northwestern Lassen County.
Two Harvey pack females born in 2025 and captured in northeastern Shasta County.

Wildlife capture operations inherently carry risk to captured animals. During this operation a sixth wolf – an adult female from the Harvey pack – died after capture. Factors contributing to its death are being investigated.

Satellite collaring is a critical management and research tool that helps CDFW monitor wolf populations, better understand landscape use and movement patterns and reduce the risk of wolf–livestock conflict. The collars do not provide real-time data; instead, they collect multiple location points per day and generally transmit those stored locations to CDFW once a day. Each collar has an expected battery life of approximately two to three years and is programmed to drop off the animal before the battery is depleted.

Over the past decade, CDFW has successfully captured 38 gray wolves statewide for the purpose of collaring. Presently, there are 13 wolves carrying active collars. Within days of capture, the approximate locations of the newly collared wolves began showing on CDFW’s Wolf Tracker mapping tool. More information about California’s wolves can be found at CDFW’s gray wolf web pages.

Photo: A yearling female gray wolf from the Whaleback pack is released after capture and collaring in Siskiyou County in November. Photo courtesy of Malia Brytus/California Wolf Project

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Media Contacts:
Axel Hunnicutt, CDFW State Gray Wolf Coordinator, (916) 628-3543
Peter Tira, CDFW Communications, (916) 215-3848

CDFW Wolf Management Action in Sierra Valley

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 09:31:24 GMT

This action follows months of intensive staff efforts responding to increasing levels of livestock loss

SIERRA VALLEY – Following an unprecedented level of livestock attacks across the Sierra Valley, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), in coordination with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), has taken the difficult step of lethally removing four gray wolves (Canis lupus) from the Beyem Seyo pack. This action follows months of intensive non-lethal management efforts to reduce livestock loss and is grounded in the best available science and understanding of wolf biology.

Between March 28 and September 10, 2025, these wolves were responsible for 70 total livestock losses. With 110 confirmed or probable wolf-caused livestock losses statewide during this period, these specific wolves account for 63% of the total livestock losses across California during this timeframe. From September 10, 2025, to October 14, 2025, 17 additional confirmed or probable livestock losses have been documented. CDFW continues to work with livestock operators and federal partners to investigate depredation events.

Despite extensive adaptive management deterrence efforts, including the use of drones, non-lethal bean bags, all-terrain vehicles, foot presence, diversionary feeding, fladry installation, and field presence 24-hours a day, seven days a week, 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 impacted wolves included a breeding pair (WHA08M and LAS23F), female (BEY01F) and male (BEY12M). During the course of the operation, a juvenile wolf (BEY12M) was mistaken for the breeding male (WHA08M), which was of similar color and size, and was unintentionally lethally removed. Remains of two additional juveniles in this pack (BEY15M and BEY17M) were found and they were determined to have died prior to the start of the operation. The cause of their deaths is unknown; however, juvenile gray wolf death due to natural causes is common. Operations continue by CDFW staff to safely capture and relocate the outstanding juveniles to wildlife facilities for their own welfare and to prevent any learned behavior from dispersing to other wolves across California.

Gray wolves naturally prey on wild ungulates like deer and elk, not livestock. These wolves had become habituated to preying on cattle, a feeding pattern that persisted and was being taught to their offspring which would leave to form their own packs and could teach them the same cattle-preying behavior. This shift not only undermines recovery efforts for the species in California but also risks altering generational feeding patterns and broader ecological dynamics. Moreover, habituation to livestock inadvertently draws wolves closer to human communities, increasing the potential for conflict despite their natural avoidance of people.

“This decision was not made lightly nor was it easy,” said CDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham. “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.

“Several things can be true simultaneously,” Director Bonham continued. “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. The Beyem Seyo pack became so reliant on cattle at an unprecedented level, and we could not break the cycle, which ultimately is not good for the long-term recovery of wolves or for people.”

This management action follows months of effort by CDFW’s Summer Strike Team, which came to a close on September 30. The Summer Strike Team program, designed to prevent livestock attacks on ranching properties in the heavily impacted Sierra Valley, deployed over 18,000 staff hours across 114 days, engaging in 95 hazing events that helped to prevent an even greater loss in cattle deaths. Eighteen Sierra Valley ranches enrolled in the program. CDFW staff also assisted ranches in evaluating the use of wolf-deterring fladry and ensuring livestock carcasses are correctly disposed of to avoid attracting scavenging wolves. Additionally, the program helped facilitate depredation investigations, enabling ranchers to access compensation through CDFW’s Wolf-Livestock Compensation Program.

Partners in the Summer Strike Team include the USFWS, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Resources Conservation Service, Sierra County, the Sierra County Sheriff’s Office, Plumas County, the Plumas County Sheriff’s Office, the California Wolf Center, and Sierra Valley Ranchers.

Gray wolves are protected as endangered species under both state and federal law, the California Endangered Species Act and the federal Endangered Species Act. CDFW takes that designation extraordinarily seriously, and lethal removal is permitted only under strict conditions. California state law provides for the conservation of endangered species like the gray wolf, including statutory recognition that the methods and procedures necessary to achieve conservation may include regulated take. CDFW worked with USFWS to ensure the actions taken were necessary and consistent with federal law.

About 100 years ago, because of efforts to eradicate the species, gray wolves disappeared from the California landscape. They returned to California through natural migration from Oregon in 2011. Most of California’s wolf population lives in the northeast portion of the state, with one pack residing in the southern Sierra Nevada.

For more information on gray wolves living in California, and actions individuals can take to deter wolves from their ranching properties, please visit CDFW’s web page on Gray Wolf.

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Media Contacts:
Contact: Jen Benedet, Jennifer.benedet@wildlife.ca.gov

Decade of Wolf Management: CDFW Report Details Wolf Research, Conservation Efforts

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 20:17:06 GMT

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) today published a report summarizing its management and conservation activities for gray wolves (Canis lupus) over the past 10 years.

“Ten Years of Gray Wolf Conservation and Management in California: 2015-2024” details CDFW’s wolf conservation and management efforts, including wolf monitoring techniques, wolf-livestock depredation investigations, wolf captures and population data for the state’s wolf packs known through 2024, including the minimum number of individuals, breeding pairs and litters produced.

Wolves were extirpated in California by 1924 and naturally returned to the state in 2011. The first pups born in California were documented in 2015. At the end of 2024, CDFW wildlife biologists documented at least 50 wolves in the state. Wolves are listed as endangered species under the California Endangered Species Act and the federal Endangered Species Act.

“Since the wolves’ return CDFW has been monitoring the growing wolf population, working to mitigate wolf-livestock conflict and conducting significant outreach to livestock producers and the public,” said CDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham. “Through these monitoring efforts, studies and outreach, CDFW and partners are building a toolkit that will offer solutions and resources for livestock producers while also allowing a native species to successfully come home.”

Starting in 2026, CDFW plans to produce an annual report about its wolf management and conservation activities. Wolf management and conservation is guided by CDFW’s 2016 Conservation Plan for Gray Wolves in California (PDF).

This first report describes 10 years of work by CDFW, such as community engagement efforts, non-lethal deterrent use and the creation of the Wolf-Livestock Compensation Program.

Maps included in the report show wolf activity in California as well as migration of collared wolves. While the Yowlumni pack has established in Tulare County, all other known packs have home ranges in northeastern California.

The report highlights include a summary of past and ongoing research that will inform CDFW’s future management of wolves.

Months after the first wolf arrived in California, CDFW formed a stakeholder working group that was divided into three subgroups: A wolf-livestock subgroup focused on wolf impacts on livestock and agriculture, a wolf-ungulates subgroup focused on wolf impacts on deer and elk populations, and a wolf conservation subgroup focused on wolf sustainability and health issues. The outcomes of 44 meetings were analyzed.

Most prevalent were topics relating to the importance of and need for data on wolves in California, including their impact on livestock, wild prey and natural ecological communities; identifying wolf population recovery goals and whether a sustainable population can be maintained over time; how the California Endangered Species Act affects wolf management options; and where lethal controls would fit into wolf management.

The report also includes an analysis of the Lassen pack’s diet and notes the work of CDFW’s Wildlife Forensics Lab to create a reference library of wolf genetic samples. The genetic samples are used to determine the origins and relatedness of California’s wolves, differentiate scats and depredations by coyotes and dogs, identify the genetic “fingerprints” of individual wolves and even determine the coat color of wolves detected only by their DNA.

The University of California, Davis, Wildlife Health Center initiated The Wolf Project in 2022, with research funded by the Wildlife Conservation Network. In 2023 CDFW began collaborating with researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, on the California Wolf Project. More information about the The Wolf Project and California Wolf Project are available online.

For more information about wolf conservation in California, CDFW Wolf Livestock Compensation Grants or to view the CDFW Wolf Tracker wolf location map go to CDFW's gray wolf web page. The Ten Years of Gray Wolf Conservation and Management in California: 2015-2024 report is now available online (PDF).

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Media Contacts:
Katie Talbot, CDFW Communications, Kaitlin.talbot@wildlife.ca.gov

CDFW Launching Pilot Effort to Reduce Gray Wolf Attacks on Livestock

Mon, 09 Jun 2025 13:31:46 GMT

Working with local agencies, law enforcement and agricultural partners, the department will implement the effort in Sierra, Plumas and Siskiyou counties

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) announced today that it is launching a summer strike team in partnership with federal and local agencies to combat livestock depredations by gray wolves in Siskiyou County and the Sierra Valley (spanning both Sierra and Plumas counties). With landowner permission, the task force will provide round-the-clock CDFW staff support seven days a week for livestock producers experiencing frequent conflicts with wolves, among other program benefits.

“Today’s announcement showcases the power of collaboration in effectively and safely managing California’s growing gray wolf population,” said CDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham. “This strike force allows CDFW to work more closely with our key partners and impacted ranchers and provide new tools to protect cattle and other livestock from harm. Together, we are doing everything we can to keep both livestock and wolves safe. Thank you to our partners in this effort for making this strike team possible.”

Recent depredation of livestock in the Sierra Valley and Siskiyou County signals the need for additional and increased support for livestock producers during the summer and fall of 2025. Interested producers are encouraged to participate in the program. The summer strike team will take a multifaceted approach to combat livestock depredations, including through:

In-person, on-the-ground support from CDFW staff. Working both day and night seven days a week, CDFW staff will be available to support ranchers facing livestock depredations. The strike team will use a combination of radio telemetry and real-time information from local ranchers to locate wolves (collared and uncollared) to proactively push them away from livestock.
Developing conflict risk management plans for participating ranchers. Livestock producers who volunteer to participate in the program and take any necessary training will have a plan tailored to their unique property and livestock needs to help mitigate future conflict through nonlethal methods. These plans may include a variety of tools, including livestock management, additional barriers, predator aversion devices or injurious harassment
Outreach, education and training. In partnership with experts in livestock production and management like the University of California Cooperative Extension, training and outreach events will be held in Sierra Valley to help provide producers techniques and strategies ranchers can take to reduce wolf-livestock conflicts through nonlethal practices.

CDFW is also working in conjunction with Sierra and Plumas counties to create a county agricultural protection position that will support depredation investigations and capture and collar methods, as well as develop carcass removal programs to mitigate wolf attraction to ranch properties.

The task force will be led by CDFW’s law enforcement and scientific staff and will increase CDFW presence in communities to effectively implement these measures. The program begins today (Monday, June 9) and is anticipated to run through the summer.

“This program is still in its early stages, so there will be a need to learn by doing together. More details will be shared as it progresses. But this is a good start, and I appreciate that,” said Plumas County Supervisor Dwight Ceresola.

Sierra Valley, which spans both Plumas and Sierra counties, has had higher-than-normal levels of livestock depredations by gray wolves in the Beyem Seyo pack over the past year. As ranchers move their cattle to the valley floor for summer grazing, additional support from this pilot program will be needed to protect livestock from wolves.

“I am thankful the state and county can do something together. We are hopeful that this additional presence will reduce the immediate losses and provide CDFW with a clear understanding of the day-to-day challenges ranchers have faced for months,” said Sierra County Supervisor Paul Roen.

Siskiyou County also has a higher level of livestock depredations compared to other counties, in relation to the Whaleback pack in particular. The county has made significant efforts in slowing depredations and working collaboratively with CDFW staff, including the hiring of a county wolf liaison, but the need for additional support remains. As part of this task force, CDFW will be providing enhanced information on wolf data to Siskiyou County staff, and Siskiyou will assist the department in investigating and collecting additional data.

"This pilot effort in all three counties is made possible through sustained coordination between county supervisors, county sheriffs, local ranchers and state and federal agencies. Importantly, it also reflects the growing calls from local sheriffs calling for CDFW to step up and help,” said Director Bonham. “I thank Sheriffs Mike Fisher, Todd Johns and Jeremiah LaRue for their help to get going on our efforts this summer. I also thank all the Northern California sheriffs and county supervisors who have been key voices for their communities.”

If you are a livestock producer in Plumas, Sierra or Siskiyou counties and are interested in learning more about the program or how to participate, please contact:

Morgan Kilgour, Region 2 Manager, CDFW — Morgan.Kilgour@wildlife.ca.gov
Tracy Schohr, UC Cooperative Extension Livestock and Natural Resources Advisor — tkschohr@ucanr.edu/916-716-2643
Paul Roen, Sierra County Supervisor — supervisor3@sierracounty.ca.gov
Dwight Ceresola, Plumas County Supervisor — ceresolasuper1@yahoo.com
Patrick Griffin, Siskiyou County Wolf Liaison — 530-598-6950

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Media Contact:
Katie Talbot, CDFW Communications, Kaitlin.talbot@wildlife.ca.gov