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Email: timberwolfinfonetwork@gmail.com
Email: timberwolfinfonetwork@gmail.com

CA: WOLF’S RETURN PITTING CONSERVATIONISTS AGAINST RANCHERS

Submitted by Gloria Bradley

The return of wolves in California has brought conservationists against ranchers, worrying the predators will prey on livestock. Previously, last month, a pack of wolves was seen for the first time in decades in California.

In August, still pictures of seven gray wolves, including two adults and five frolicking pups, were captured on a trail camera in Siskiyou County near the Oregon border. The pack was discovered 4 years after a single radio-collared wolf was spotted crossing into California, for the first time ever since the animal last existed in the Golden State in 1924.

State officials have started putting in efforts to get guidelines in place before conflicts arise, as are prevailing in other Western states wherein ranchers have been trying to defend their herds from predatory attacks, and hunters are afraid that the animals will kill too many elk and deer. Ranchers can’t kill or harass them, unless allowed by regulations because the gray wolf in California has been listed as endangered under both federal and state law.

Supervisor Ray Haupt of Siskiyou County said, “There’s nervousness and fear, because agriculture is the bread and butter of our economy”. The county is a lightly populated area of around 45,000 residents, including the Mount Shasta volcano.

Contrary to it, environmentalists said that the return of wolf is a cause for celebration, and has served as another milestone in what they mentioned one of the more successful wildlife recovery programs in the West.

According to them, wolves have been misunderstood and seek to avoid humans. They play a healthy natural role in culling populations of deer and elk by weeding out the old and sick.

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