According to the CDFW website, ranchers and CDFW officials spent “18,000 hours” trying wolf deterrent methods, but apparently failed to implement what is widely known as the most effective wolf deterrent, the presence of Pyrenees dogs and llamas to guard the herd, combined with the old cowboy technique of “riding the range.” If ranchers claim that the herds are too big to defend, then these industrial sized herds are clearly too big-period. If wolves cannot survive even in one of California’s most wild areas, what chance do they have in the state?
Death without reason is murder and state officials and local ranchers have blood on their hands. These (endangered) wolves who included one of only a handful of breeding pairs in the whole state, were murdered unnecessarily by state officials, who failed initially to prevent habituation of the wolves to easy meals, when they knew wolves were in the area. The killings are even more unnecessary, as the cows in Sierra Valley are about to be transported to the central valley for overwintering, and they would not be a food source for much longer this season anyway.
Instead of working with the entire community to come up with a solution, the CDFW have basically become a “strike team” obediently serving Big Ag and destroying even the most sensitive and endangered species in our state. Shame on them…