A wildfire in 2021 boosted grass growth, providing feed for livestock, but the predator’s return has ranchers worried.
A muscular skull, two hooves and an undersized hide are all that remain of the 650-pound cow.
“The Wolf Kills,” William McDarment, a rancher on the Tule River Reservation in Tulare County, California. “Cleanly picked up in less than a week. . . Look at those pieces. “
The footprints are from McDarment’s palm and around the corpse.
The preserve’s terrain is desert and alpine, with 55,000 acres of scrub and redwood bordering the Sequoia National Forest. About two years ago, the reserve, which has more cattle than citizens, was devastated by the Windy Fire, which erupted in 2021 after a lightning strike. lashed out here. Years of drought allowed for a larger fire and 97,000 acres burned, adding many of the preserve’s 300-foot-tall redwoods. The loss of some of the largest trees on the planet was a spiritual blow to the 500 members of the Tule River Indian Tribe.
“But it opened up the forest, which is a smart thing to do,” says McDarment, who spent 30 years fighting wildfires for the U. S. Forest Service. The fires stimulate the growth of the grass, supply feed to the cows and cowboys like him, cash-strapped and count the land.
The fires brought changes: wolves.
After the fire, the reserve became a wonderful place for dens and hunting. Wolves also love open forests, and the reserve had plenty of them, plus meaty cows. In July, a pack of gray wolves was spotted near Sequoia. National Forest after a nearly 150-year absence in Southern California. The pack, an adult female and four cubs, has generated excitement among locals and wildlife enthusiasts alike, but locals wonder if the giant predators have a place in the modern world and what risks they take. They can pose for ranchers’ farm animals.
“You can’t kill a wolf even if it kills its livestock, because wolves depend on the federal government,” McDarment adds. “Then what do we do?”
The challenge is that a lot has changed since wolves last appeared in California. The species once roamed throughout the United States, but in the 1920s it was hunted to extinction in the Golden State.
There just wasn’t enough room for humans and the predator to coexist. But thanks to conservation efforts and renewed legal protections, wolves have made a comeback. About 6,000 more people now live in the lower 48 states. In California, they do this through the Endangered Species Act, which amounts to a $100,000 fine or prison time.
The Lobos officially returned to the Golden State in 2011. Since then, about 40 of them have entered, most laying claim to the northeast corner of California. The new pack is located 200 miles south in the Sequoia National Forest, a stone’s throw from maintenance. and the best hiding place.
They have to hide, says Jordan Traverso, communications manager for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, because while many other people in California’s leftist cities have applauded the return of wolves, those who live in and around them, like farm animal ranchers, have little recourse if a wolf kills their livestock. That’s why wolves are “so controversial. “
Chances are, these wolves won’t roam your big city garden, but they do move around looking for territory and that’s what makes other people in Tulare County nervous. This also explains why California is truly a progressive paradox: either it’s an environmental bellwether that influences everything from emissions to endangered species policies that drive conservation, but it’s also full of large-scale agriculture and factory farms that can pollute and destroy the environment. land.
This back-and-forth is “ironic,” Wolke notes, “since we’ve been destroying nature for many years and now we need it. “Wolke spent 40 years as a wilderness guide, drafted a law with Dick Cheney for 1 million acres in Wyoming in the 1980s and served six months of criminal time after destroying a rural road.
He knows wildlife because he’s lived around it all his life, even seeing wolves killing elk from his porch in Montana. What is happening here “is part of a gigantic national war for land and space. It’s too crowded,” which creates tension. ” when a giant predator comes home. Of course, the wolves will lose. But why do we assume that humans deserve whether wildlife lives or dies?If you, your wife, your children, and your dog have a right to exist, so do wolves.
No animal divides us like wolves, notes Traverso, who tells me that while “the audience discovers the precise location of the new pack, even the lovers,” their days are “numbered. “
In fact, even locals like McDarment, who have lived in those mountains all their lives, are skeptical about the return of the wolves. “How is it possible that a man and a woman are here two hundred miles and two miles?” he asked as we drove to the reservation. “It’s a very difficult country. Maybe the government brought them in by plane?
“We didn’t,” Traverso responds. “The wolves have come down in search of a mate. “
But last year, two captive wolf hybrids escaped from a nearby wolf sanctuary, says Tricia Stever-Blatter, director of the Tulare County Office of Agriculture. “Have some wolves escaped?
“Wild wolves don’t belong to me,” says John Waller, who runs Kennedy Meadows Wild Canine Conservation with his wife Natalie, just across the mountain from the preserve. When we speak, the burly Brit in a cowboy hat and military education admits that his animals escaped when a snowfall knocked down a fence. But here we don’t breed wolves, we breed wolf-dog hybrids. And his fugitives only fled for two hours, he says, petting one of the fugitives, a gray-furred woman. who licks his hand like a dog. ” The fact is, I’m all for the new herd. Our purpose is to breed natural wolves and release them back into the wild for the species. We’re waiting for the permits, so it’s just a matter of time.
Environmentalist Michelle Harris says wolves have a right to return because “they’ve been here longer than we have. But saying that is popular,” he adds, “we’re in a country that raises farm animals. “
We wouldn’t know anything about wolves without Harris. In July, the 28-year-old was behind the wheel of her Subaru when something crossed the road. He stopped the car as the creature trotted uphill, stopped between the trees and “Then he screamed and I took a picture of him,” Harris recalls, unfazed when a mosquito bites his forehead. “There can’t be a healthy ecosystem without wolves. We deserve to celebrate. “
John Guthrie, 54, a sixth-generation rancher in Porterville, says he didn’t get the gist. It’s not that ranchers hate wolves, it’s quite the opposite. I respect nature but we want balance.
Guthrie, who also grows oranges, walnuts and almonds, hasn’t lost any cows, but says it’s “only a matter of time. “Their farm animals also graze in the forests conquered by wolves, but the factor is not limited to cows. “It’s the livelihood of families like mine. “
This debate is not taking place, he says, because of a “rural-urban disconnect” that is “highly political. “Much of this country doesn’t realize where our food comes from and how fragile that balance is. What do wolves mean in The Lives of Those Who Supply Food?I love wildlife, I live in it, but do we want wolves?You can’t say “yes” blindly, and I don’t think it’s the wisest thing city dwellers are cheering for. »
Wolves are neither monsters nor romantic symbols, and they rarely attack humans or livestock. When the government reintroduced 41 wolves to Yellowstone National Park in 1995, ranchers in Montana and Wyoming were up in arms. Over the next 8 years, wolves killed 256 sheep and 41 farm animals in those states (states with millions of heads of farm animals).
“Instead of decimating the cows,” Wolke says, “the wolves reduced the number of elk, allowing willows and aspens to return. The same was true for birds and beavers, which advanced into the wetlands.
Although no one knows how many cows have been killed here, wolves are to blame for less than 4% of farm animal deaths in the United States. California offers the full market price for the cows killed, but it’s tricky to find out which wolves are to blame and calls for DNA testing. “Just having wolves around scary cows,” Guthrie says, “and that can save them from giving birth. “
As it turns out, wolves are the only locals who need to talk. Fear is the central theme, says Greg King of The Ghost Forest: Racists, Radicals, and Real Estate in the California Redwoods. “Herders care about their livestock and humans. worry about themselves. Fear is destructive. Maybe we can’t have it all.
And when other people are afraid, it’s the wolves who pay the price. Case in point: December 2018, when a rancher in Northern California spotted a wolf feeding on a puppy. The researchers decided that the calf most likely died of pneumonia. , however, the wolf was found dead on the side of a road, riddled with Array. 22 caliber cartridges. A farmer was arrested, but the police may not find out that he pulled the trigger, so they let him go. It may have simply taken place here.
“Some ranchers have already taken matters into their own hands,” McDarment admits. Guard dogs can be a solution, as can herding livestock, but it’s “hard to do with cows that are so spread out. “
This article was amended on November 17, 2023 to remove a citation that provided data on hunting and ranching on national forest lands.