Gray wolves on the comeback in California
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00:00 After a well-documented comeback in Yellowstone Park,
00:03 the gray wolf has begun to reappear
00:05 in the higher mountains and forested areas
00:07 of northern California.
00:09 In Tulare County, where cattlemen and ranchers
00:11 enjoy a boom in livestock, fears grow
00:15 over an inevitable encounter with this apex predator
00:18 that Phewace Robin guest takes on in this story.
00:21 The heart of Tulare County, California is agriculture.
00:29 Here, hundreds of ranchers and farmers
00:32 feed the state, the country, and the world.
00:35 State agriculture experts estimate
00:38 800,000 head of livestock live in Tulare,
00:42 and many range the Sequoia National Forest.
00:46 Sharing that space with them, bears, mountain lions, coyotes,
00:51 and more recently, the six gray wolves of the Tulare County
00:55 pack.
00:56 It's a concern with people that, you know,
00:59 field and have livestock and stuff.
01:02 They don't want to have to face any more challenges of loss
01:05 to another predator.
01:06 Here at Colburn Cattle Company, the livestock are show cattle,
01:12 and one can cost as much as $200,000.
01:16 Livestock are a billion-dollar industry here,
01:19 and losses are never taken lightly.
01:22 The mountain lion is one of the biggest and costliest problems.
01:27 They're so bad that the lions would pack up,
01:30 and they'd take whole cows and calves.
01:31 And the neighbor north of us, he just
01:34 evacuated all of his cattle out there
01:36 because he was just-- the losses were so significant.
01:39 And then we did, you know, right after him
01:42 and brought him down here.
01:43 While ranchers have tactics to deal with mountain lions,
01:48 the gray wolf brings new challenges.
01:51 Scientists say the animals recently
01:53 returned to California forests and now number 50.
01:57 And when all of a sudden you throw this apex predator,
02:00 a big one, a 200-pound male, it becomes an issue.
02:06 And we're going to have to learn how to deal with that.
02:08 Anticipating some problems, California
02:11 set aside $3 million for the next three years
02:15 to reimburse ranchers and farmers who
02:18 lose livestock to wolves.
02:20 They're expecting about $1 million
02:23 of losses per year over the next three years,
02:25 is what that tells me.
02:27 And that's a lot of animals, even with animal prices
02:31 at what they are today, which are on the high side,
02:35 to say the least.
02:36 The human-wildlife conflict is a problem seen the world over,
02:41 from Thailand and India, where communities contend with tigers,
02:46 to Botswana, Kenya, and Tanzania,
02:49 where lions are sometimes a threat to livestock and people.
02:54 The solution is often death for these predators.
02:57 With that in mind, the California Department
03:00 of Fish and Wildlife is keeping close tabs
03:04 on the Tulare-packed six wolves and says
03:07 it watches and learns from international experiences.
03:11 We will have individuals who take things in their own hands.
03:16 That worries me.
03:17 It's not going to work out well for the individual that
03:21 decides to do that.
03:23 And the loss of a wolf at this moment in time
03:26 really could set us back.
03:28 State law and the Federal Endangered Species Act
03:31 protect California's gray wolves.
03:34 But wildlife experts say that wolves and the space
03:38 they share with people will both be better protected
03:42 if and when biologists can catch and put
03:45 tracking collars on them.
03:48 Robin Guess, in Tulare County, VOA News.