However, as human settlements grew, these livestock-killing canids became \u201cvermin\u201d<\/a> and were hunted to near-extinction in many parts of their range. By the mid-20th century<\/a>, wolves were extirpated from the contiguous U.S.<\/p>\n Their remarkable comeback since the 1980s<\/a>, thanks in part to their reintroduction<\/a> to Yellowstone National Park, has sparked joy<\/a>, controversy<\/a> and conflicts<\/a>.<\/p>\n The latest saga is playing out in California, where there\u2019s a lot of potential for conflict: It\u2019s the most populous U.S. state<\/a> with nearly 40 million people<\/a>. Some 7 million cattle<\/a> graze on 57 million acres<\/a> of rangeland, half of which are privately owned.<\/p>\n California\u2019s wolves, which naturally dispersed south from Oregon, are now further expanding their territories, with more \u00a0frequent encounters \u2014 and conflict \u2014 with humans . \u201cAlmost every pack does overlap to some degree with an agricultural area with livestock,\u201d said Axel Hunnicutt, a biologist who coordinates the wolf program for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). Almost every group has killed livestock. \u201cThat\u2019s one thing that unites all of the packs in California, unfortunately,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n While conservationists hail the wolves\u2019 return<\/a>, ranchers are already losing livestock.<\/a>\u00a0Some residents, unaccustomed to living with the canids for nearly a century, worry about their safety<\/a>.<\/p>\n How wolves will change the ecosystem, where they\u2019ll settle, how well they\u2019ll survive and how they\u2019ll coexist with people remains to be seen. \u201cWe\u2019re at the beginning of this really exciting recovery \u2026 so there\u2019s a lot of unknowns,\u201d said Kaggie Orrick , director of the California Wolf Project<\/a> at the University of California, Berkeley.<\/p>\n What we do know is that there are now 50-70 wolves living in 10 packs in various parts of the state, according to CDFW. Their numbers are steadily increasing, and they are protected under both California law and the federal Endangered Species Act. They can\u2019t be hunted or removed, even if they kill livestock.<\/p>\n As the wolves navigate a complex mosaic of ranches and farms, wild lands, highways and wilderness corridors, slowly recolonizing the landscape, the state\u2019s wildlife agency faces challenges. Protecting carnivores is never easy, but especially amidst concerns about the new wild canids in people\u2019s backyards and on their rangelands.<\/p>\n That proximity has made some ranchers and members of the public antsy, at best.<\/p>\n A brief history of California\u2019s wolves<\/p>\n California is historically wolf country, with anecdotal evidence of their presence dating back to the 1700s<\/a>. The state\u2019s last gray wolf was killed in 1924<\/a>, trapped and shot in Lassen county.<\/p>\n But on a relatively warm December day in 2011, a radio-collared young male named OR-7 strayed south into California\u2019s southern Cascades from Oregon. Researchers tracked his remarkable 1,600-kilometer (1,000-mile) journey<\/a>. He was the first wolf known to set foot in the state after an 87-year absence. But he returned to Oregon and founded the Rogue Pack<\/a>. His descendants subsequently crossed the border and established packs in California.<\/p>\n As social animals, wolves form dynamic groups, sometimes hanging around for a bit and then moving to another area. They only become an established pack, in the eyes of the state wildlife agency, when a member has pups or they\u2019re seen in the area at least four times within a six-month period.<\/p>\n The Sashta Pack<\/a>, with two adults and five pups, became the state\u2019s first official pack in 2015, moving into Siskiyou county near the Oregon line. But the pack quickly disintegrated, and by 2016, most members were presumed dead<\/a>. That same year, another group, the Lassen Pack, appeared on the edge of Lassen and Plumas counties, and two adults successfully raised litters. In subsequent years, others have popped up, and today, 50-70 individuals live in at least 10 packs. Three new packs<\/a> were confirmed in early 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of the wolf presence is concentrated in northeastern California, north of Lake Tahoe and east of Interstate 5,\u201d Hunnicutt said. Another pack, the Yowlumni Pack, named by the Tule River Tribe<\/a>, settled in the southern Sierra Nevada. It roams more than 320 km (200 mi) from the nearest known northern California pack \u2014 a testament to how far wolves can disperse in the landscape. \u201cOur projections tell us there is more habitat that wolves can occupy in the future, depending on native prey availability like deer and elk,\u201d said Matthew Hyde, a carnivore ecologist at UC Berkeley\u2019s California Wolf Project.<\/p>\n Wolves are resilient. \u201c[They] are one of the most widespread, generalist and adaptive species on the planet and can basically be anywhere,\u201d Hyde said. Human tolerance to their presence, he added, determines whether wolves can live in a place.<\/p>\n They reproduce rapidly, with an average litter size of 4-5 pups each year. Between December and February, they begin seeking out mates, and by April, they\u2019re denning with pups. However, despite their large litters, many of those pups don\u2019t survive their first year.<\/p>\n That large litter size, coupled with the fact that California-born wolves are mating with others from outside the area and forming new packs, Hyde said, is \u201cwhy we\u2019re starting to see that exponential growth that\u2019s happening in California.\u201d<\/p>\n The Whaleback Pack in eastern Siskiyou county, one of the most well-known, has been prolific. It produced seven pups in 2021, eight pups in 2022, eight more the next year and at least six pups in 2024. Those eight-pup litters are the largest known in the state in more than a century.<\/p>\n With prey-rich potential wolf habitats state-wide and a rapid reproduction rate, scientists expect wolves to further expand and will likely become a constant presence in California\u2019s landscape.<\/p>\n Wolves are apex predators that serve a critical role in the system. They keep fast-producing \u00a0animals like deer and elk in check. Studies have revealed how this helps reduce deer-vehicle collisions<\/a> and prevent transmission of<\/a> chronic wasting disease and other contagious diseases by targeting sick and weak animals.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do, in theory, know that they could regulate deer populations,\u201d Orrick said. \u201cThey could influence scavenger communities. They could alter prey behavior, as we\u2019ve seen in other systems.\u201d<\/p>\n While the transformation attributed to wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone National Park has been challenged in recent years<\/a>, there\u2019s no denying that a new predator in an ecosystem has cascading impacts.<\/p>\n However, California is very different from other parts of the U.S., and the wolves\u2019 effects here will unfold over the next few years. \u201cThis landscape is fragmented and human-dominated, so the outcomes might look very different [from Yellowstone],\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re still very much in the early stages of understanding how wolves shape ecosystems, specifically in a state like California.\u201d<\/p>\n The California Wolf Project, in collaboration with CDFW, has installed a network of camera traps across the northern part of the state to track the wolves\u2019 ecological impacts on the landscape. Researchers are also studying their diet, their interactions with mountain lions (Puma concolor), black bears (Ursus americanus) and other predators, and observing \u00a0how drought and wildfire affect them.<\/p>\n These wolves have settled in environments ranging from remote mountain wilderness to working lands with close proximity to people. They have larger territories than their brethren living elsewhere in the U.S.<\/p>\n Although the packs are concentrated in the northeast, they are not bunched closely together and conflicts between them are few. Hunnicutt has two theories why. One possibility is that these wolves are just beginning to establish their home turf. Another factor, he said, is that \u201cthey\u2019re made up of animals that know each other.\u201d The relative peace will change over time as social dynamics develop.<\/p>\n OR-7\u2019s brief stay in California in 2011 prompted discussions between CDFW, conservation groups, livestock producers, concerned citizens and other stakeholders. Soon, the agency began work on a conservation plan for gray wolves that it finalized in 2016. It outlines wolf recovery in three phases, and is based on the number of breeding pairs in the state. A pair is defined as at least one adult female and one adult male that have produced a minimum of two pups that survived their first year.<\/p>\n With at least four breeding pairs documented in 2023 and 2024, California\u2019s wolf conservation plan is now in Phase 2. This provides some flexibility in managing conflicts, given that livestock kills have increased. In the last decade, the state has investigated 274 cases of possible wolf attacks on livestock; 128 were confirmed. For context, this amounts to about one per month.<\/p>\n The Whaleback Pack<\/a> in east Siskiyou county stands out with 77 confirmed attacks. Hunnicutt attributed the pack\u2019s preference for livestock to culture \u2014 behavior that is passed down from parents to pups. \u201cIt\u2019s clear that with certain packs, there is chronic depredation, and it has become a behavioral situation,\u201d he said. But in some situation, he added, it simply comes down to survival: the lack of other prey.<\/p>\n CDFW launched a three-pronged program in 2021 to pay ranchers for livestock that was killed by wolves and also compensated them for indirect losses such as lower pregnancy rates and decreased weight of animals in their herds. The program also paid for nonlethal deterrents and warning systems. The pilot program ended in 2024 as the $3 million funding ran out, so CDFW currently compensates only for direct losses from wolf attacks.<\/p>\n In June 2025, CDFW launched a pilot program<\/a> to mitigate conflict in Siskiyou county and the Sierra Valley, where livestock depredation is relatively high. Staff are outfitting some wolves with GPS collars that allow them to track the canids\u2019 movements.<\/p>\n So far, they have collared 12 wolves in three packs<\/a>. With real-time information, officers can harness wolves\u2019 fear of people to drive them away from towns or ranches, or use hazing techniques, such as rubber bullets and beanbag shells, to deter them when necessary. Only CDFW officials are permitted to use these tools.<\/p>\n Hunnicutt said going into Phase 2 also means CDFW is now initiating a review of the gray wolf\u2019s endangered status, given its increase in numbers. The next phase of the recovery program kicks in when eight breeding pairs are in a region for two consecutive years. It may involve delisting of wolves from the Endangered Species Act or their lethal removal in the case of conflicts.<\/p>\n Hyde, the biologist at UC Berkeley\u2019s wolf project, called this reassessment a \u201cwelcome process\u201d as it updates the current management plan with more science and community perspectives. \u201cAn important piece of wolf conservation and management is mitigating impacts with human communities, and Phase 2 may allow for greater flexibility to have successful conflict mitigation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n An unknown future with a recolonizing predator<\/p>\n For nearly a century, the wolves\u2019 howls fell silent in California, but that\u2019s changing. As wolves continue to thrive, their future depends on the protections that California and Washington, D.C., decide to provide. With the fate of public lands potentially in jeopardy<\/a> under the Trump administration, wildlife, including wolves and their prey, may have less protected land to roam, which might bring about more human-wolf and wolf-livestock conflicts.<\/p>\n \u201cHearing a wolf howl in California landscapes after 100 years is super great,\u201d Hyde said. To make it last, he emphasized the importance of people working together to mitigate livestock kills and conflicts with people. This, he said, will \u201cbe the ultimate determinant in how wolves are going to be able to spread.\u201d<\/p>\n While concerned ranchers are counting their losses, some members of the public are anxious about safety. A handful of California counties<\/a> have issued public safety emergencies following wolf attacks on livestock, though no humans have been harmed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not seeing wolves that are acting aggressively,\u201d Hunnicutt said. \u201cWolves, compared to the other large carnivores in the state, are definitely low on the list in terms of likelihood of actually posing a public safety threat.\u201d<\/p>\n Numbers back that up: According to a report<\/a> by the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, only two fatal attacks were attributed to these canids from 2002-20 in North America. The authors note that with 60,000 wolves in North America and 15,000 in Europe cohabiting with hundreds of millions of people, \u201cthe risks associated with a wolf attack are above zero, but far too low to calculate.\u201d In contrast, dogs kill more than 40 people<\/a> each year in the U.S. alone, while cattle kill 20-22 Americans<\/a> yearly.<\/p>\n People\u2019s internal fear of wolves<\/a> may be a substantial factor in considering wolves a public safety threat. \u201cWe have an instinctive fear of wolves in our own unique history,\u201d Hunnicutt said. \u201cWhen you suddenly do have a wolf reappear into your life \u2026 it is very scary for people.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the public\u2019s fear of these canids, he said, comes from the visual goriness of a wolf hunt and their pack hunting style, which some perceive as more threatening than bears and mountain lions that hunt alone.<\/p>\n As wolves begin their recolonization in California, sharing the land with predators requires co-existence. But to some, wolves are still varmints. \u201cPublic tolerance, in areas where wolves are, is decreasing,\u201d Hunnicutt said, adding that the wolves\u2019 future remains precarious. \u201cWe were very good at eradicating the species 100 years ago. \u2026 It wouldn\u2019t take very much for the population to crash, should bad actors decide to take action.\u201d<\/p>\n Banner image: Gray wolves are native to California and were extirpated from the state in the 1920s. Over the last decade, they have made a remarkable comeback, recolonizing the lands where their howls once echoed. Image courtesy of Malia Byrtus for California Wolf Project.<\/p>\n Wolves through the ages: A journey of coexistence, conflict, and conservation<\/a><\/p>\n Yellowstone\u2019s wolves defied extinction, but face new threats beyond park\u2019s borders<\/a><\/p>\n Citations:<\/p>\n Raynor, J. L., Grainger, C. A., & Parker, D. P. (2021). Wolves make roadways safer, generating large economic returns to predator conservation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(22). doi:10.1073\/pnas.2023251118<\/a><\/p>\n Byard, R. W. (2024). Death and injuries caused by cattle: A forensic overview. Forensic Science Medicine and Pathology. doi: 10.1007\/s12024-024-00786-8<\/a><\/p>\n ![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Aspen_Male_Gray_Wolf_Wolf_Park.jpg\")
<\/a>Gray wolves are the largest members of the dog family and are widespread across North America, Europe and Asia. Image by Raed Mansour via Wikimedia Commons<\/a> (CC BY 2.0<\/a>).<\/p>\n![\"Geographical](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/2025_102_AA_California_WolfPacks_v1-02-scaled.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Wolf](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Wolf-biologists-from-UC-Berkeley.jpg\")
<\/a>Wolf biologists from UC Berkeley\u2019s California Wolf Program study wildlife preyed upon by wolves to understand their diet and their impact on the landscape. Image courtesy of Malia Byrtus for California Wolf Project.<\/p>\n![\"Wolves](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wolf-habitat.jpg\")
<\/a>Wolves are the most widespread mammals after humans, living in a wide variety of habitats, from remote wilderness to frozen tundra and taiga to grasslands and even deserts. Image courtesy of Malia Byrtus for California Wolf Project.
\nApex predators in the ecosystem<\/p>\n![\"Trail](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wolf-cubs.jpg\")
<\/a>Trail cameras capture images of wolf pups from the Lassen Pack. Image by California Department of Fish and Wildlife via Wikimedia Commons<\/a> (CC BY 2.0<\/a>).
\nCalifornia\u2019s wolf management program<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Grey-wolves-2.jpg\")
<\/a>A wolf being released into the wild after getting a GPS collar. CDFW uses real-time information from these collars to track wolf activity and plan mitigation measures. Image courtesy of Malia Byrtus for California Wolf Project.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n