“Where’s the beef?” California wolves ask. “It’s what’s for dinner.”

California wolves eat seven times more cattle than wolves in other states

DAVIS,  California––Are recently self-reintroduced wolves in California targeting cattle due to a scarcity of their natural wild prey,  or just as easy prey?

Wolves on their way into California,  raising their first surviving litter in 2016,  followed mule deer and elk herds through Idaho,  southern Oregon,  and northern Nevada.

Those wolves ate more-or-less the normal U.S. wolf diet of 92% wild prey,  either hunted or scavenged,  supplemented by about 8% livestock,  for which many paid with their lives.

Confirmed cattle and sheep-eating wolves were tracked and trapped or shot by USDA Wildlife Services and/or state agents.

Scat study

But California wolves appear to have changed their dinner habits,  according to University of California at Davis professor of agriculture and resource economics Tina L. Saitone,  her late husband Kenneth W. Tate,  and colleague Benjamin J. Sacks,  in a study entitled “Gray Wolf Diet Composition in California’s Human-Dominated Landscape,”  published on July 8, 2026 in the peer-reviewed scientific journal PLOS One.

To demonstrate that they know their shit,  especially wolf shit,  Saitone,  Tate,  and Sacks sniffed out and “collected scats opportunistically from June to October of 2022 and 2023 along dirt roads and game/livestock trails throughout the study area,”  in Lassen and Plumas counties of northern California,  “coinciding,”  they wrote,  “with other wolf and livestock monitoring efforts and fieldwork.

“Over the two years,”  Saitone et al explained,  “a total of 384 scat samples were collected. DNA genotyping confirmed 105 samples (27%) as gray wolf,  245 (64%) as coyote,”  six each as bobcat and black bear,  and just one as puma.

Five poops could not be identified.

85% of the wolves had eaten cattle

The DNA work established that the scats included at least one each “from 20 individual wolves,”  of whom  “At least 17 (85%) of the wolves had consumed cattle;  the three individuals for which we did not document consumption of cattle were each represented by a single scat.

“Our findings,”  Saitone et al concluded,  “indicate that cattle dominated wolf diet,  occurring in 72% of samples during the study period,  compared to mule deer, which occurred in 45% of samples,  and small mammals that appeared in 51% of samples.”

Noteworthy was the absence of horse meat.  A small number of wild horses roam adjacent counties in both California and Nevada,  and wolves have occasionally been blamed for alleged predation on owned horses,  but Saitone et al appear to have found no evidence of wolves either hunting or scavenging equines.

            (See 1,000 wild horses expelled from the Devil’s Garden.)

Study confirms ranchers’ beef 

“Dietary biomass estimates,”  Saitone et al continued,  “corroborated cattle as the principal dietary component, accounting for an average of 55%,  while mule deer and small mammals each contributed considerably smaller proportions, 12% and 15%, respectively.”

Those findings both confirm that ranchers,  long vehemently opposed to wolf reintroduction,  have a legitimate beef about the presence of wolves,  at least in northern California,  and tend to refute the wolf advocacy contention that wolves are necessary to control a potential over-abundance of ungulates,  meaning mostly mule deer and wolves.

That is not good news for the estimated 90 wolves in 12 packs now established in California.

Seeking permission to kill wolves

As Saitone et al put it,  “These results revealed that wolves in California’s human-modified landscape primarily satisfy their caloric requirements through livestock consumption,  underscoring the considerable challenges posed by coexistence of wolves and humans within the state.”

Translation:  ranchers can be expected to use the findings to leverage permission to shoot and trap wolves,  or to get the state and feds to kill them.

“Existing research indicates that under natural conditions,”  Saitone et al summarized,  “gray wolves typically shift to alternative prey when populations of their primary wild ungulate prey decline.

“However, in human-modified landscapes across the globe,  some gray wolf populations are documented to consume substantial quantities of anthropogenic food,”  meaning food provided by humans,  whether intentionally or accidentally,  “in cases when wild prey remain abundant.”

“Limited wild ungulate abundance and diversity”

Detailed Saitone et al,  “This study was conducted in a heavily human-modified landscape with high livestock density and limited wild ungulate abundance and diversity,”  in “the summer wolf pack territories of the Lassen and Harvey packs.”

Specifically,  “The Lassen Pack’s den sites and most of their rendezvous site locations were close to large meadow complexes where cattle grazing occurs throughout the summer.  The territories of the Lassen and Harvey Packs entirely overlap with U.S. Forest Service grazing allotments and private land where cattle are present from May through October each year.”

In these areas,  Saitone et al suggested,  “The combination of large herd sizes,  topographic complexity,  and the need for cattle to range widely to access native forage and water collectively render most non-lethal deterrence tools impractical to implement at a meaningful scale.”

Scavenging

Distinguishing actual predation from scavenging was complicated,  Saitone et al indicated,  because,  “Carcass disposal practices varied across the study area.  Where feasible,  carcasses were removed and buried or transported to a rendering facility;  however,  carcasses discovered in remote locations or involving animals too large to move were left in place and consumed by wildlife,”  including wolves,  who as elsewhere that wolves have become re-established,  may be blamed for killing livestock dead from other causes.

Observed Saitone et al,   “California lacks the total quantity and diversity of large- and medium-sized wild ungulates present in other parts of North America where gray wolf diet has been studied.  White-tailed deer,  moose,  and caribou do not occur in California.

Elk scarce

“While California is home to elk, their numbers are relatively low in the state as a whole and in northeastern California,  in particular.”

However,  Saitone et al noted,  “There is substantial overlap of elk range and Harvey Pack home range,”  in Lassen County.  “In California’s Wolf Management Plan, concern was expressed about the ability of the elk population to handle predation from wolves:  ‘Most of California’s elk populations are small,  which creates the possibility of localized extirpation.’

“Given that prey density and overall prey abundance are documented to be drivers of gray wolf diet,”   Saitone et al assessed,  “it is not surprising that elk was not observed to contribute to the summer diet of [either] the Lassen or Harvey Packs.”

Mule deer in decline

“The only viable wild ungulate prey,”  in California,  Saitone et al opined,  are mule deer,  who have “been in population decline since the 1970s.  On a regional level,  deer populations in northeastern California have experienced the sharpest percentage declines in the state.”

Evaluating what the Saitone et al study may mean,  San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Kurtis Alexander observed that,  “The state budget proposed by California governor Gavin Newsom,  set for final consideration this month,  includes little or no funding for programs central to managing California’s emerging wolf population — a shortfall that both friends and foes of wolves say could lead to problems.

No funding for compensation

“His proposed 2026-2027 budget,”  Alexander continued,  “taking effect July 1,   2026,  “offers no funding for the state’s Wolf-Livestock Compensation Program,  which provides financial reimbursement to ranchers whose livestock are killed by wolves,”  down from $2 million in the previous fiscal year.

This in turn was down from $3 million budgeted for compensation of ranchers in 2022,  when the program started.

“The California Department of Fish & Wildlife,  which oversees wolf management,”  Alexander recounted,  “has promoted the compensation program as a way to not only to make ranchers whole but increase buy-in for the recovery.

“The program,”  Alexander explained,  “initially extended the reimbursement to wolf deterrence measures,  like building fences,  and it provided ‘pay for presence’ funds to compensate ranchers for the stress wolves put on livestock.  Payments for these purposes have since been dropped,  though both ranching and conservation groups are pushing to restore them.”

“Wolf deterrence”

Alexander in November 2025 reported about a “wolf deterrence measure” involving “dozens of state and federal wildlife agents” who “shot bean bags at the predators,   rushed them with all-terrain vehicles,”  and “buzzed them with drones, often blasting loud AC/DC music.

“Nearly four months later and with more than 18,000 staff hours logged,”  Alexander continued,  “the state-run crackdown on wolves in this pocket of Plumas and Sierra counties wrapped up with little success.  Almost every morning brought the sight of another dead cow.

“At one point,  instead of trying to drive the wolves away,  state officials tried to wean them off beef,  by offering them roadkill,  mostly deer.  That didn’t work either.”

Pull the cows?

What might work would be withdrawing all of the estimated 45,000 to 55,000 cattle from public lands in Lassen and Plumas counties,  at least for few years,  to re-acquaint wolves with their natural diets.

But apart from the political reality that this just is not going to happen,  cattle scarcity might only encourage more wolves used to hunting and scavenging cattle to move on south,  into closer proximity to far more cattle.

A rebounding population of mule deer might help.  The mule deer population,  however,  is primarily limited by the availability of browse.

The abundance of browse,  in turn,  depends on precipitation,  in a state ever dryer due to climate change,  and on the amount of second growth underway in forests that have either been logged off or burned in wildfires.

Please donate to help our work:

www.animals24-7.org/donate