"In California, as wolf numbers grow — a remarkable return after a century — livestock producers are increasingly worried as these predators occasionally take down cattle."
"In May 2025, five counties in northern California — mostly rural farm and ranch land — declared an unprecedented state of emergency. It wasn’t a natural disaster or civil unrest that led to panic, but rather a bunch of thriving canids — wolves, to be precise. They’d killed livestock, and according to some residents, were exhibiting “bold, abnormal behavior” and “coming too close to homes.”
Between October and December 2024, wolves killed 19 cattle in an area home to more than 300,000 cows, but the wolves are, in reality, returning to what was once their own homes.
Gray wolves (Canis lupus) roamed the Californian landscape for thousands of years until the last one was shot in the 1920s. But over the last decade, they have started recolonizing their former territories, migrating south from Oregon, and their numbers have begun to rebound with howling success. Today, between 50 and 70 wolves live in 10 packs across the state, with most concentrated in the northeast — around counties that declared a state of emergency."
Spoorthy Raman reports for Mongabay October 16, 2025.
SEE ALSO:
Part 1: "Wolves’ Continued Spread In California Brings Joy, Controversy & Conflicts" (Mongabay)
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