Wolves Kill 18 Livestock Animals in California

A timber wolf roams in its enclosure at the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center in Divide, Colorado on March 28, 2023. (Jason Connolly/AFP via Getty Images)

California wolves have killed 18 livestock animals since August 2023, according to the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The department this month reported 16 gray wolf depredations—that is, when wolves or other predators kill or injure domestic animals, according to wolf advocacy and conservation website wolf.org—resulting in 18 livestock losses since August.

The report is part of an evaluation of the Wolf-Livestock Compensation Pilot Program, which is a $3 million program established by the department in 2021 to compensate farmers for the loss of their livestock due to wolf attacks.

However, the report comes as the department warns its compensation program funds will soon run dry.

The department said it has received a total of 102 grant applications for the compensation program, but that the applications are projected to exhaust the current fund—and says that there may not be sufficient funds available for applications submitted from this point forward.

The gray wolf is considered a recovering endangered species protected under the California Endangered Species Act and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Federal Endangered Species Act.

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Gray wolves were likely largely killed off or forced out of the state in the 1920s, according to the department. However, gray wolf packs began returning to the state in 2011 “on their own by dispersal of individuals from source populations in other states,” the department’s website states.

According to the department, gray wolves pose little threat to humans and mostly target livestock and wild game like elk and deer.