Posted on 04/25/2025 4:39:37 PM PDT by george76
Wolves in California are costing ranchers millions of dollars far beyond just the price of cattle killed, .. A Wyoming rancher says the secondary costs of predation are well-known here.
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As California’s wolf population expands, the predators there are costing ranchers millions — not just in value of the cattle killed, but through collateral effects as well
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one wolf can cause $69,000 to $162,000 in “direct and indirect losses from lower pregnancy rates in cows and decreased weight gain in calves,” ..
Those results should come as no surprise to Wyoming ranchers, Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association..
“I’ve raised the point many times that it’s not just the animal they kill, there are other costs involved,”
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California Wolf Packs Grow..
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By the end of 2024, California had seven established wolf packs.
California ranchers have expressed alarm over their state’s growing wolf population and attacks on cattle there.
Wolves remain protected in California unlike in much of Wyoming, where ranchers can kill them at any time.
Kirk Wilbur, vice president of government affairs for the California Cattleman’s Association, previously told Cowboy State Daily that his state’s $3 million compensation fund for livestock losses to wolves was starting to run dry.
Study Results From Wolf Scat, Cattle Hair..
The UC Davis study focused on the effects to livestock caused by three wolf packs in northeastern California. Researchers studied interactions between wolves and cattle from June to October in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Researches surmised that “total indirect losses” to ranchers ranged from $1.4 million to $3.4 million.
Among their findings was that 72% of the wolf scat samples taken in 2022 and 2023 contained cattle DNA. Also, that hair samples from cattle contained elevated levels of the stress-related hormone cortisol.
Wolves Make Cattle ‘Bunch Up’..
Ranchers in Wyoming are aware of the secondary effects that wolves and other predators have on cattle, Magagna said.
Wolves can make cattle herds “bunch up” instead of spreading across the landscape and actively graze, he said.
That can lead to weight loss in cattle and lower fertility rates in cows, he said.
“It also impacts the resource (rangeland and forage) as they are forced into bunches,” Magagna said.
That can include things such as bunched-up cattle trampling streambanks or over-grazing certain areas.
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Bean said that as an advocate for wolves, she recognizes that ranchers’ concerns must be taken seriously. Those include worries over effects that go beyond only cattle that are maimed and killed in wolf attacks.
$160K loss but they’ll be damned if they spend $10K on guard dogs.
They could hire a couple of shepherds to go along with those dogs.
California only had 7 wolf packs? A wolf pack could be as few as 3 or as many as 7. I guess the other wolf packs went to Vegas
.308 is about 60 cents a round.
Dont need a study for what is a fact.
BTW..donkeys. Best herd watchers around.
How about Irish wolfhounds?
I recently saw a video of a donkey chasing a hyena, and the hyena was running scared, while the donkey looked very determined and aggressive.
Every species in any environment needs to be managed-if they are overpopulating so much that their natural prey are declining so they attack livestock, then there needs to be a season for hunting them so the population is brought back into balance.
But your kill em all/extermination attitude is what happened in the 19th/early 20th century. Since nature hates a vacuum, the smaller, more clever and dangerous coyotes that have little to no fear of humans filled the niche left when all the wolves were gone, so the situation got worse. Extermination of an apex predator-or any other species predator or prey-is not the correct solution-humans are not the apex predators competing in the natural world, unless you are living in a cave and hunting for food with a bow and arrow. We manage wildlife for hunting and a natural balance now-not destroy it-I’m a nature lover and also a hunter-I believe in having a balanced ecosystem...
All of my neighbors with livestock-even chickens-keep dogs like Great Pyrenees, Anatolian Shepherds, etc and donkeys for stock-and property guards-some have llamas-also dangerous animals in spite of their cute faces. Coyotes don’t stand a chance against that kick. Stock theft, AKA rustling-still sometimes happens out here-but not on property with those dogs and donkeys. The last person killed by an animal out here was 7 years ago-kicked to death by a donkey...
Where!? Where are you getting ammo that cheap!? It’s almost 2 bucks a round here.
use ammoseek to find stuff.
Sadly I’m in BC, so it’s going fully commie now. Balkanization coming.
Sorry to hear that.
That incident was talked about for awhile-the deceased person was not a local-supposedly a thief-climbed over the fence, and was on his way to the house while everyone was at work-but encountered their donkey-who did not like strangers...
He had to have either been a meth head or a city dumbass who thought it would be easy to do a daylight theft in an isolated area with a small population-city people forget that people in BFE keep guard dogs and other guard animals, and we are not concerned about being sued by trespassers who come to harm because they ignored the no trespassing signs and purple painted posts...
True, but one wolf in California is about 5-7 years in prison.
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