Since California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials announced killing five grey wolves Oct. 24, reaction in Plumas and Sierra counties has been largely somber. Even ranchers who had lost livestock to wolves expressed regrets that the situation had escalated to lethally removing the apex predators.
“It’s just sad in so many ways – sad the wolves were put in this position,” said Rick Roberti in a telephone interview with The Plumas Sun. A Sierra County rancher who has lost several livestock to wolves, Roberti is president of the California Cattlemen’s Association.
CDFW officials said in October they took “the difficult step” of lethally removing four gray wolves (Canis lupus) from the Beyem Seyo pack, which has been active in Sierra Valley for well over a year. They targeted a breeding male and female pair, a solo male and a solo female. During the operation a juvenile male was killed accidently, CDFW reported.
From March 28 to Sept. 10, these four adult wolves were responsible for 70 total livestock losses, representing 63% of wolf-caused livestock losses reported across the state during that time period, according to the CDFW. Over the next month, ranchers reported an additional 17 livestock losses that were considered “probable” wolf kills.
Summer Strike Team
Wolves have been working their way back into California since 2011, when OR-7 crossed the border from Oregon into Siskiyou County. His 15-month romp, mostly in California’s northeastern counties, launched the return of a species that had not been seen in the state since 1924. By the summer of 2025, state officials reported 10 packs and several wolf activity areas. They estimated the total population at around 50 wolves.
The decision to take lethal action followed a summer dedicated to reducing the livestock losses without killing wolves. In June, CDFW deployed the Summer Strike Team, a multi-agency effort to dissuade wolves from preying on cattle. The project, which Roberti estimated to cost $2 million, used drones, bean bags, all-terrain vehicles, foot presence, diversionary feeding and other non-lethal methods to divert wolves away from livestock. The team maintained an active field presence 24-hours a day, seven days a week, CDFW reported.
Eighteen Sierra Valley ranchers enrolled in the Summer Strike Team program. It 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, the CDFW press release stated.
Yet the killing continued, said Roberti. The team members “were good guys who came here to help, but Sierra Valley is big,” he said.
“The killing never stopped,” said Plumas County Supervisor Dwight Ceresola. His ranch has lost two animals to wolves. “Something needed to be done. There’s just no stopping these .”
Reactions range
CDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham said the decision to kill four wolves “was not made lightly nor was it easy.
“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,” he said in the department’s press release.
The death of the wolves left Amaroq Weiss, senior wolf advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, without words to describe her feelings. “And I know that countless others are feeling the same way after such a tumultuous summer in the Sierra Valley,” she told The Plumas Sun in an email. Weiss said the livestock-wolf conflicts that escalated throughout the summer could have been prevented.
“Many of these conflicts could have been avoided if ranchers had started proactively implementing conflict-deterrent measures three or four years ago,” she said.
Wolves are protected as endangered under both state and federal law. They are still a long way from recovery, Weiss said. “Killing them can never be a long-term solution for coexistence with these extraordinary and ecologically essential carnivores.”
Roberti agreed with at least part of that. Wolves are smart, he said. “They know what they are doing. We don’t.”
Weiss cited science that documents nonlethal conflict-deterrent measures done in advance as the best way to prevent conflicts from beginning. Significant funds have been available for the last several years through the California legislature to reimburse livestock operators for using proactive, nonlethal conflict-prevention measures, she said.
Escalation in Sierra Valley
Although Plumas and Sierra county ranchers have been living with wolves killing their livestock for nearly a decade, Roberti said the escalation in Sierra Valley began three years ago. The Beyem Seyo pack, which had been concentrated in Clover Valley west of Sierra Valley, began spending more and more time near Cal Pine, 13 miles southeast of Graeagle. That’s near the Roberti and adjacent ranches in the eastern portion of Sierra Valley.
“We kept waiting for them to leave,” he said. One wolf did leave but came back “all bloodied up,” said Roberti. He speculated that it may have returned to Clover Valley, where it encountered another wolf pack. CDFW officials have documented wolves active in Clover Valley where the Beyem Seyo pack had been.
Ron Logan, president of Friends of Plumas Wilderness, offered his personal perspective: Removing the four wolves from privately-owned ranches seemed “about the only solution for now,” he said in a telephone interview. If the killing was as out of control as CDFG officials described, it was necessary. “Nothing seemed to be working,” said Logan.
He might hold a different view if the wolf kills were on public land, Logan said: “There’s some sharing that has to go on there.”
The escalation of livestock depredation over the summer, followed by the killings, has not been good for Sierra Valley or Portola, said Portola Mayor Jim Murphy. The city feels the toll of the economic losses to ranchers, he said. Murphy called the lethal removal of the wolves “appropriate.”
“Wolf packs are growing. It’s worrisome. There has to be something to counter the effect on ranchers,” he said.
Murphy lamented wolves’ contribution to the reduction in ranching, which, with logging, has been the mainstay of the local economy. Plumas-Sierra CattleWomen recently announced they are “calling it quits” after 60 years.
“We are winding down on agriculture, the crux of this area,” Murphy said.
“A little less wild”
Feather River Action! offered another perspective. A Portola-based grassroots group organized to defend against threats to the Feather River ecosystem, its website Oct. 26 said, “The Lost Sierra is tragically a little less wild this weekend.” Members of the Beyem Seyo pack were killed “simply for following their instincts and preying on free hamburgers,” Feather River Action! stated on its website.
Bonham, the CDFW director, acknowledged the disparity of reactions to killing endangered species. “Several things can be true simultaneously,” he said.
“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, Bonham continued. “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.”
CDFW is continuing operations “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.”
Asked about the future of the Beyem Seyo pack, Roberti said, “I don’t know.”