- [Jeff] Production funding for "American Grown" provided by James G. Parker Insurance, protecting agribusiness in the Valley for over 40 years.

Brandt Professional Agriculture, discovering, manufacturing, and supplying the ag inputs that support the heroes that work hard to feed a hungry world every day.

By Unwired Broadband, today's internet for rural central California.

Keeping Valley ag connected since 2003.

By Hodges Electric, trusted by builders to wire thousands of Valley homes, now bringing that trust direct to you.

By Wawona Frozen Foods, fruit as it should be.

Family owned since 1963.

By Harris Farms, a legacy of growing.

By Harrison Co, providing family farms insight to make the best possible financial decisions.

And by Valley Air Conditioning and Repair, family owned for over 50 years, dedicated to supporting Valley agriculture and families that grow food for the nation.

(exciting music fades) - [Announcer] The following program contains graphic images.

Viewer discretion is advised.

(dark indie-rock music) ♪ Let the bellows blow ♪ (dark indie-rock music) ♪ Let the fire grow ♪ - [Jeff] Sierra Valley, California, a high mountain basin tucked into the Sierra just 30 minutes north of Truckee.

From above it's a place of staggering beauty.

Wide open meadows, snow-dusted peaks, long shadows stretching across land that hasn't changed much in 100 years.

But this isn't just scenery, this is a working valley.

For generations Sierra Valley has been built on the Western way of life.

Hard work, strong families, faith on Sundays, and cattle on the range.

Ranching here isn't a business you clock into, it's a code you live by.

It's passed down, learned young, and protected fiercely.

On weekends that heritage shows itself plainly.

Neighbors gathering, dust in the air, ropes snapping tight at local steer roping competitions.

It's community, it's tradition, it's identity.

♪ The bellows blow, let the fire grow ♪ ♪ Swing the heavy sledge, break every bone ♪ ♪ Temper me with pain, it's all that I know ♪ (dark indie-rock music) ♪ Forge me in your holy flames ♪ (dark indie-rock music) - [Jeff] But today, that way of life is facing a new threat, one that arrives silently under the cover of darkness and one protected by law.

The Canadian gray wolf, reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in 1995, has slowly expanded west and now descendants of those wolves have arrived here in Sierra Valley.

By late summer of 2025, confirmed wolf kills of calves across the Valley approach 90.

For ranchers already operating on thin margins, the losses aren't just financial, they're personal.

(dark indie-rock music) Frustration turns to anger.

Anger turns to desperation.

(dark indie-rock music) The California Department of Fish and Wildlife offers few answers and even fewer solutions, often unwilling to meet, talk, or meaningfully engage with the people living this reality every day.

Federal drone hazing programs attempt to push wolves away from nighttime calving grounds, but the efforts prove largely ineffective.

- Got 'em.

- And so a question hangs in the cold mountain air, with wolves protected by both federal law and California's Endangered Species Act, with livelihoods on the line and with no clear path forward, what happens next?

If ranchers are left with only one final option, taking matters into their own hands, it's a choice that could cost them everything.

Heavy fines, jail time, and a line no one wants to cross.

(dark indie-rock music) So where does Sierra Valley go from here?

And is coexistence still possible or has this fight reached its breaking point?

(dark indie-rock music fades) (gentle contemplative music) - I am Arthur Middleton and I'm a professor of Wildlife Management here at UC Berkeley.

And I'm a co-lead of the California Wolf Project.

Yeah, what led to the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone and Idaho back in the mid-'90s, really goes back to the just massive declines.

And in some cases, like the case of the wolf, eradication of some of this country species, you know, in the preceding couple centuries that led to the American public supporting in the Congress, passing a law, the Endangered Species Act, and states like California passing their own, you know, protections that said, "We're not gonna do that.

We're not gonna hunt and harvest and persecute species in that way.

And sometimes we're gonna restore them back to parts of their range that they've been lost from."

They had been so thoroughly eradicated from the American West at the closest and most closely related, you know, wolves were in the Canadian Rockies, you know, to the north.

And so those wolves were sourced from populations in Alberta and British Columbia as the closest, you know, relatives of what was in further down the spine of the continent and the central Rockies.

(gentle contemplative music) - [Jeff] For some, the debate over wolves in California doesn't begin with livestock losses or range maps.

It begins with history.

(gentle contemplative music) Long before fences, highways, and state lines, wolves roamed the West.

But which wolves were here exactly is still a point of contention.

Ranchers and some biologists argue that the wolves returning today aren't the same animals that once lived on this landscape, that the subspecies native to California disappeared long ago.

And the wolves that are here now migrated West from the Canadian gray wolves reestablished in Yellowstone National Park.

If that's true, they ask, "How can these wolves be considered native or protected in a place they were never meant to be?"

It's a question that goes to the heart of science, law, and land use, and one that doesn't have a simple answer.

- You know, we think that the differences between them are very small, partly because wolves are so wide-ranging and gregarious and successful kicking out, you know, pups and dispersers that they were sort of moving around fluidly in the West, including across what's now the Canadian border.

And so were they different?

Yeah, you know, probably.

Were they massively different?

Yeah, I don't, probably not.

And so there's a lot of debate about that.

I think it's, uh, a debate that expresses people's frustration about now having to figure out how to live with wolves, but is a bit of a distraction from, you know, some of the sort of pressing issues of figuring it out.

(tense music) - [Jeff] By late summer of 2025, the tension in Sierra Valley reaches a breaking point.

Federal teams are now on the ground using drones in an effort to push the three collared adult wolves of the Beyem Seyo Pack out of active cattle pastures.

But the wolves adapt quickly, shifting from daytime hunting to overnight and early morning hours, staying one step ahead of the technology meant to deter them.

At the same time, resources begin to thin.

Federal funding for drone operations starts to run dry.

State strike teams deployed earlier in the year to non-lethally harass wolves away from livestock, are stretched to their limits.

And through it all, communication between the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the people of Sierra Valley, including its sheriff, remains a problem.

Inside the Sierraville High School gym, ranchers, biologists, wildlife officials, and even mental health experts meet regularly, searching for answers, but a new pressure point is approaching fast.

Fall is coming.

Soon most of the cattle in Sierra Valley will be moved to lower elevations, taking with them the primary food source these wolves have now learned to rely on.

And that raises a troubling question, "When the cattle are gone and winter sets in, what happens next?"

The killing of an elk in a residential yard near Loyalton and a deer taken inside someone's fence, suggests the answer may not stay in the wild.

- It's a huge concern.

You know, I think we can say, "Oh, some will follow," but we can't guarantee that.

And so as you heard in the meeting yesterday, our FFA program sits right there by the high school with a lot of sheep, pigs, and a few beef, and they're just gonna be prime pickings.

But then the bigger concern for that is we've got the high school, the junior high, and the elementary school all right next to each other.

And if those wolves are coming in to get those animals, they are in a very close proximity with the children.

We've already had predator issues because we have predator problems around here anyways, due to everything being overly protected.

So we've already had mountain lions close to the school where we have to make sure that, you know, the kids get to the bus safely because there's been a mountain lion sighting.

So that just the feelings that the educators are having is how much more closely do we have to watch the kids?

- On the story side, I think there's so many stories to tell about this wolf issue.

Just the stress alone on the cow herd is really a huge issue.

Losing calves is really terrible.

A lot of these ranchers take, really, a lot of pride in their herds.

They handpick their genetics.

It's not like something they can just go out and replace when a calf is ripped apart in the middle of the night.

That's a calf they picked.

They chose to keep that mom because they liked her traits.

So it's really hard to watch ranchers, the toughest people I know.

My dad, Paul, other people in the Valley, it's really hard to watch the toughest guys I know be distraught over this issue and losing a lot of sleep.

So that's another story on its own.

And just the stress on the ranchers I think is a storyline.

And then, yeah, like I said, the animal welfare speaks for itself, but there's so many storylines.

I think it's to grasp the full picture, unless like you are right here, right now seeing it.

But it's a really hard story to tell the whole story unless you're deeply involved.

- Even as a researcher, I was concerned initially about the regional nature of the problem.

So in 2020, 2022 when we were conceiving this research, it really was isolated to Siskiyou County and Lassen and Plumas Counties.

And since that time, wolf populations have really proliferated both in number and expanded significantly in geographic scope.

So I believe we have 10 packs in the state right now, all the way from the Oregon border down into Tulare County.

We've seen, you know, wolves disperse throughout the state, especially if they come from Oregon, we have GPS collars and can track their dispersal.

So Southern California is certainly not out of the realm of possibility.

And ranchers throughout the state are concerned that they might be in the next location where a pack establishes, and where they're gonna have significant wolf pressure on their cattle or sheep or goat operations, depending on the location.

- Generally, you know, there are pretty robust populations of wolves in large areas of Canada, such that they're not managed with quite the level of protection we see, at least in several of the Western states still, where there are smaller populations.

And so you see a little bit more or sometimes a lot more, you know, allowance of hunters to take wolves as a recreational activity or trappers seeking furs.

You see greater use of targeted lethal removal in some of those provinces and other, you know, nations, in the world when there are conflicts with agriculture, livestock, and other domestic animals.

So it varies, but there's some broad patterns.

(lively tense music) - Just a short distance from where the wolves have already been seen moving through town, the local high school's FFA program keeps sheep, pigs, and cattle.

Kids are working these animals every day.

For parents, teachers, and local officials, concern grows quickly.

Wolves have already crossed the line, and now with cattle gone, the margin of error feels razor thin.

What frustrates many ranchers most is what comes before this moment.

All summer long, even as losses mount, restraint prevails.

More than 90 calves are taken by three collared wolves from the Beyem Seyo Pack, and still no one takes matters into their own hands.

(lively tense music) Ranchers document kills, they report sightings, they work through the system, trusting the process, trusting that California Department of Fish and Wildlife will act.

But on the ground, trust erodes.

Again, I make multiple requests to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife for an interview for some kind of comment on what's happening in Sierra Valley.

And again, like most of the ranchers here, my requests are ignored.

By nearly every account from Sierra Valley, the state agency tasked with protecting both wildlife and people appears distant, elusive, and unresponsive.

(lively tense music) Then comes a surprise.

The federal government steps in, in a final decision, federal officials order the killing of the three problem wolves.

The hope is simple, remove the wolves quickly, humanely, and without turning Sierra Valley into a national flashpoint.

According to Sierra County Supervisor Paul Roen, when the order reaches California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the response is immediate and furious.

The state pushes back insisting if the wolves are going to be killed, California should do it.

They argue, they know the terrain, the situation, the animals.

(lively tense music) Ranchers are stunned.

Their working relationship with federal agencies, particularly the USDA and Federal Wildlife officials, has been cooperative and productive.

Their experience with the state has been the opposite.

Still the decision stands, California will carry out the kill.

What happens next only deepens the divide.

Under a cloak of secrecy without notifying the community, the state brings in a helicopter.

On the very same day, several high profile pro-wolf activist groups suddenly arrive in Sierra Valley.

How they know to be there on that exact day remains an unanswered question.

From the air, the state tracks a wolf, gets a clear shot and takes it, but it's the wrong animal.

Instead of killing one of the three collared wolves responsible for the vast majority of the livestock losses, the state kills a pup.

The operation stops cold, the kill order grinds to a halt, and anger ripples through every side of this issue.

Days turn into a week.

Ranchers continue reporting the locations of the three collared wolves.

"Those reports," they say, "are ignored."

What federal officials believed could have been resolved in an afternoon drags on, feeding suspicion and resentment throughout Sierra Valley.

(lively tense music) Finally, more than three weeks later, the state acts.

The three collared wolves are tranquilized and euthanized.

The precedent for lethal removal of endangered wolves in California has been set.

For many in Sierra Valley, the outcome brings little relief.

What lingers in the aftermath is the belief that this ending was never truly intended.

That the delays, the missteps, and the silence point to something deeper, a sense that when it came time to choose between wolves and the people who live alongside them, the state never fully made up its mind.

(tense music fades) - Every story needs a bad guy.

And they tried to make us be the bad guy throughout this whole thing.

They blamed us for what was happening, but we need to back up and say, "Who let these wolves into California and put 'em in this position when there's nothing else for them to eat here?"

They knew this was gonna happen, and I think it did catch Fish and Game, uh-uh, Fish and Wildlife off guard.

We still can't believe we have wolves here.

It is been years, but we still can't believe it.

And so we understand why other people can't believe it, but I just want, you know, we did what we had to do and if we have to do more, we'll do more ourselves.

Because we were put in a position we should never have been put in.

- Yeah.

- And they knew this was gonna happen all along.

- I think that if they, you know, if they remove these wolves, of course the predation here is gonna stop.

At least for now, you know.

And they need to find a lasting solution.

And it's proven fact that if you put pressure on the wolves, mostly through lethal means, they will pull out of the easy country and go hunt where it's hard.

I mean, the wolves are really smart.

And one thing, they're a very social animal and they don't like to have their pack disrupted.

I mean, I have friends in other states and once they started removing the wolves, and I'm not saying you have to kill 'em, but if you remove 'em, that the wolves are smart enough to know that they should, you know, they should stop going down there into the cattle.

- What we lived through this last summer is now happening in Lassen County and in Siskiyou County.

And the department is saying there's no way they're gonna help or that they're going to try to- - Replicate this.

- Do anything against these other wolves.

But again, we go back to the harassment, that they won't give us in writing as to what we can do to discourage these wolves- - On the front end.

- On the front end.

But now you still got two packs that are doing the same thing in two other counties that we survived, and it's not good.

It's, it's- - Yeah, it's getting worse.

- Economic and the stress on the people is terrible.

(tranquil contemplative music) - [Jeff] Winter has returned to Sierra Valley quietly.

(tranquil contemplative music) Snow blankets the basin.

Ice seals the pastures that only months ago were green and alive with cattle.

(tranquil contemplative music) The herds are gone now and the cold has settled in, hard and unrelenting, over this place.

(tranquil contemplative music) As the sun rises with temperatures well below 20 degrees, we're back in the Valley following Paul Roen through the frozen back roads as new calls come in.

The wolves are still in Sierra Valley, still searching, still trying to survive.

(tranquil contemplative music) We get a report of wolves on a nearby hillside.

Drones go up, long lenses strain to separate shadow from snow, motion from silence.

(tranquil contemplative music) Then another pair closer to town, two separate encounters in a single morning.

The takeaway is unavoidable.

(tranquil contemplative music) The cattle have been gone for months, winter has arrived in full force and yet the wolves remain.

(tranquil contemplative music) They haven't moved on, they haven't left these lands.

Instead they are adapting, searching for new food sources, new ways to endure a brutal season in a landscape that no longer offers what it once did.

(tranquil contemplative music) Sierra Valley is quieter now, colder, and the questions facing this place have only sharpened with the freeze.

- You know, coexistence is gonna take deterring wolves, things that can deter wolves.

It's gonna take better protecting livestock.

It's gonna take, you know, thinking about the habitat for elk and deer and other alternatives to livestock.

(gentle music) It's gonna take lethal removal when all else fails (gentle music) to back folks up as they engage in these efforts, (gentle music) and to, you know, halt really severe depredation problems.

(gentle music) It's also gonna take a real demonstration that folks aren't on the hook for all the costs of this.

And so that means a really robust compensation program that works well, that's funded by the public of this state.

So that when you lose a domestic animal, even though you can't be made completely whole, some of that cost, most of that cost could be covered.

And if we're asking producers to make major changes on their operations that involve risk or uncertainty, that are a major shift for a business, there's gonna be a need to show up and help support that, help share the cost of that.

And so, you know, that's really the kind of package that's gonna be needed to promote coexistence.

It's gonna take patience and time.

This is not gonna happen tomorrow.

It's gonna be a multi-year.

It's gonna be a 5 and 10 year process.

(gentle music) - [Jeff] The wolf knows nothing of the debate that now surrounds it.

It has been reborn into a new world, yet burdened with ancient ties to these lands, shaped long before fence lines and homesteads.

(gentle music) The challenge now is to see how evolved we've become.

Can people agree on a plan that allows wolves to return to these landscapes in a way that endures?

(gentle music) Or will our deep divisions ensure their doom once again?

(gentle music) (gentle music fades) (dark indie-rock music) - [Announcer] Production funding for "American Grown" provided by James G. Parker Insurance, protecting agribusiness in the Valley for over 40 years.

Brandt Professional Agriculture, discovering, manufacturing, and supplying the ag inputs that support the heroes that work hard to feed a hungry world every day.

By Unwired Broadband, today's internet for rural central California.

Keeping Valley Ag connected since 2003.

By Hodges Electric, trusted by builders to wire thousands of Valley homes, now bringing that trust direct to you.

By Wawona Frozen Foods, fruit as it should be.

Family owned since 1963.

By Harris Farms, a legacy of growing.

By Harrison Co, providing family farms insight to make the best possible financial decisions.

And by Valley Air Conditioning and Repair, family owned for over 50 years, dedicated to supporting Valley agriculture and families that grow food for the nation.

(exciting music fades)