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.

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