{"id":190965,"date":"2025-04-30T17:29:47","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T00:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=190965"},"modified":"2025-04-30T17:29:47","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T00:29:47","slug":"one-wolf-can-cause-up-to-162000-in-losses-due-to-reduced-growth-and-pregnancies-by-emily-c-dooley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=190965","title":{"rendered":"One Wolf Can Cause Up To $162,000 in Losses Due To Reduced Growth and Pregnancies ~ by Emily C. Dooley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Davis, CA…(UC Davis)…Motion-activated field cameras, GPS collars, wolf scat analysis and cattle tail hair samples are helping University of California, Davis, researchers shed new light on how an expanding and protected gray wolf population is affecting cattle operations, leading to millions of dollars in losses.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Long believed extinct in California, a lone gray wolf was seen entering the Golden State from Oregon in 2011 and a pack was spotted in Siskiyou County in 2015. By the end of 2024, seven wolf packs were\u00a0documented<\/a>\u00a0with evidence of the animals in four other locations. As wolves proliferated, ranchers in those areas feared they would prey on cattle.<\/p>\n

Tina Saitone, a University of California, Davis, professor and Cooperative Extension specialist in livestock and rangeland economics, sought to quantify the direct and indirect costs after the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, or CDFW, launched a pilot program to compensate ranchers for wolf-related losses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not really any research in the state on the economic consequences of an apex predator interacting with livestock,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

An interdisciplinary team<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Saitone proposed the research to her husband, Ken Tate, a UC Davis professor and Cooperative Extension specialist in rangeland sciences. Ben Sacks, director of the Mammalian Ecology and Conservation Unit in the UC Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory, joined to analyze wolf scat. Brenda McCowan, a professor of population health and reproduction at UC Davis Veterinary Medicine, examined cortisol levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of nervous ranchers,\u201d Tate said, and \u201cthere\u2019s a very limited amount of work on this topic.\u201d<\/p>\n

The interdisciplinary research centered on three wolf packs \u2014 Harvey, Lassen and Beyem Seyo \u2014 and their interactions with rangeland cattle in northeastern California from June to October of 2022, 2023 and 2024. Funding came from the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension Program, the California Cattle Council and the Russell L. Rustici Rangeland and Cattle Research Endowment.<\/p>\n

The team found that:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • One wolf can cause between $69,000 and $162,000 in direct and indirect losses from lower pregnancy rates in cows and decreased weight gain in calves;<\/li>\n
  • Total indirect losses are estimated to range from $1.4 million to $3.4 million depending on moderate or severe impacts from wolves across the three packs;<\/li>\n
  • 72% of wolf scat samples tested during the 2022 and 2023 summer seasons contained cattle DNA; and<\/li>\n
  • Hair cortisol levels were elevated in cattle that ranged in areas with wolves, indicating an increase in stress.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    \u201cIt is clear the scale of conflict between wolves and cattle is substantial, expanding and costly to ranchers in terms of animal welfare, animal performance and ranch profitability,\u201d Saitone said. \u201cThis is not surprising given that cattle appear to be a major component of wolf diet and the calories drive their conservation success.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \n
    \n
    \n
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    \n
    \"A<\/div>
    A game camera captured this gray wolf from the Lassen pack among a herd of cattle in July of 2022. (Ken Tate and Tina Saitone \/ UC Davis)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

    Collaborating for access, information<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    Researchers trekked into remote rangelands to mount motion-activated game cameras, obtained access agreements from ranchers and permission to put GPS collars on cows. Neither Saitone or Tate had undertaken that kind of work, but years of collaborating on other research paid off, with land managers and ranchers providing information and support.<\/p>\n

    \u201cThis is such a sensitive issue for ranchers and landowners that it took pretty much every bit of my 30 years of network building to get us access to land and cattle for this study,\u201d Tate said.<\/p>\n

    Local cattle ranchers and others provided tips on locations to post cameras. \u201cFolks on the ground were really helpful in facilitating our understanding of wolf dynamics in general,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

    Scanning for wolves<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    Saitone and Tate deployed a network of more than 120 trail cameras and put GPS collars on 140 cows in locations with and without wolves in their grazing areas. Every two weeks they checked on the trail cameras, swapped out memory cards and cleared away brush or branches that could activate the cameras with just a simple breeze.<\/p>\n

    The two didn\u2019t know whether they would capture any wolf photos.<\/p>\n

    \u201cYou don\u2019t see these animals very often,\u201d Tate said. \u201cThey\u2019re nocturnal. You engage with them almost exclusively via the cameras.\u201d<\/p>\n

    But one evening reviewing trail camera data, Saitone noticed a herd of cows and calves walking fast and running by a camera for about 30 minutes, followed by two wolves in the middle of the night. \u201cThey\u2019d been chasing those cattle and we just caught it on camera,\u201d Tate said. \u201cThat stress event just streamed by and, for me, was the first and most exciting finding of evidence wolves were negatively interacting with cattle.\u201d<\/p>\n

    That wasn\u2019t the end of the discoveries.<\/p>\n

    \n
    \n
    \n
    \n
    \n
    \"Stevi<\/div>
    Stevi Vanderzwan, associate specialist and laboratory manager, preparing a scat sample for DNA extraction in the mammalian Ecology and Conservation Unit of the UC Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory. (Don Preisler \/ UC Davis)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

    Sampling scat<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    During camera checks, they found canine scat. \u201cWolves will use roads and trails primarily, just like humans and cattle will,\u201d Saitone said. \u201cIt\u2019s the easiest path for them to take so frequently their scat is deposited along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

    They began collecting the scat, preserving it with desiccant and handing it over to Sacks for analysis. Of 377 samples they turned over, about 27% were from wolves, with the remainder coming from coyotes, bobcats and lions.<\/p>\n

    Of the summer 2022 samples, 86% the wolf scat contained cattle DNA and 13 different wolves were identified, all of which had eaten cattle. Over the two years, 72% of the samples had cattle DNA. Mule deer, rodents and occasional bear and bird DNA also showed up in the scat analysis, Sack said.<\/p>\n

    Sacks emphasized that the data didn\u2019t indicate what killed the cattle, \u201cit just tells us what\u2019s for dinner,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

    A new phase of management<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    Gray wolves are protected under the state and federal law as endangered species. CDFW\u2019s depredation compensation program paid out $3.1 million in initial funding and the agency said April 2 it was moving into a new phase of wolf management given increasing population numbers.<\/p>\n

    The next phase entails evaluating the status of gray wolves, evaluating potential permits to allow \u201cless-than-lethal harassment\u201d such as noise or use of motorized equipment to deter the predators, an online tool to provide location details of wolves with GPS collars, investigating livestock losses due to depredation and other actions.<\/p>\n

    Saitone and Tate say the research could better inform the conversation.<\/p>\n

    \u201cWe do need to get toward some kind of coexistence,\u201d Tate said. \u201cWe don\u2019t know what that\u2019s going to look like but it doesn\u2019t look like what we\u2019re doing now, that\u2019s for sure. It\u2019s not sustainable. This research helps, I think, to advance that conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Davis, CA…(UC Davis)…Motion-activated field cameras, GPS collars, wolf scat analysis and cattle tail hair samples are helping University of California, Davis, researchers shed new light on how an expanding and protected gray wolf population is affecting cattle operations, leading to millions of dollars in losses. Long believed extinct in California, a lone gray wolf was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":190966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,3,20,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animals-pets","category-business","category-featured","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Fullscreen-capture-4302025-52711-PM.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=190965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190967,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190965\/revisions\/190967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/190966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=190965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=190965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=190965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}