This blog presents a recent op-ed in The Sacramento Bee that explores the removal of the Beyem Seyo wolf pack from the wild.

The removal of the Beyem Seyo wolf pack from the wild is a tragedy - and one that was completely avoidable. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife's decision to kill four wolves in mid-October after they had grown habituated to preying on livestock for over a year is a failure in our efforts to coexist peacefully with wild animals.

We must learn from this tragedy and make important changes and significant investments in how California manages wildlife conflicts generally and wolves in particular.

Nonlethal methods to reduce wolf-livestock interactions can work when implemented early and consistently. Such proactive conflict mitigation strategies should have been put in place well before nearly 90 livestock losses were incurred between late March and mid-October by this single wolf pack earlier this year - unprecedented circumstances far beyond any known experience with wolves here in California or anywhere in the West.

Beyem Seyo wasn't just any family of wolves. They were part of a remarkable return. In late December 2011, a lone wolf known as OR-7 crossed over our northern border nearly 90 years after gray wolves were eradicated from the Golden State. This solitary gray wolf, on an incredible journey of survival and drive to return to a place his ancestors roamed freely for millennia, sparked great hope and urgent action.

To its credit, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife responded swiftly by forming the Wolf Stakeholder Working Group, bringing together ranchers, scientists, hunters and environmentalists to create a science-based wolf management plan. It was an honor of my nearly 30-year conservation career to have been an invited member of this working group. I am extremely proud of the final product that came out of more than 40 meetings, challenging conversations and years of work together.

From this collaboration, California developed one of the strongest wolf conservation programs in the country.

But the tragedy in Sierra Valley reveals a system under strain. While the Department of Fish and Wildlife's first ever "Strike Team" undertook exceptional efforts to deploy nonlethal strategies - including 24/7 human presence, range riders, diversionary feeding, specialized fencing known as fladry and hazing with drones, all-terrain vehicles and bean bag rounds - it was simply too late.

The failure in Sierra Valley wasn't a failure of coexistence tools. It was a failure to invest in and comprehensively implement such tools effectively and in a timely manner after wolf-livestock conflicts occurred. The first confirmed livestock predation by the Beyem Seyo wolves occurred in January 2024, and then at least four more happened over the course of about a month in Spring 2024. But the Strike Team wasn't deployed until June 2025 - nearly a year and a half after the initial wolf-related loss.

If proactive conflict mitigation measures were deployed shortly after the first wolf predation was confirmed, perhaps the unprecedented loss and the need to deploy the Strike Team could have been avoided altogether.

To prevent more tragic lethal wolf removals like this, California must commit to investing in a comprehensive, well-funded coexistence strategy for our entire state - for the benefit of wolves, mountain lions, bears, beavers and coyotes, as well as urban, suburban and rural communities. This means hiring far more Department of Fish and Wildlife conflict specialists to increase its presence working directly within communities, with ranchers and landowners, sharing conflict reduction tools and strategies.

It also means better access to nonlethal deterrents like those used this summer in Sierra Valley, as well as increased information sharing and community outreach, fostering a culture of proactive collaboration instead of reaction.

Disturbingly, California recently cut staffing for its wildlife coexistence programs - the very programs designed to prevent outcomes like what occurred in Sierra Valley. That decision must be reversed immediately. If anything, we should be tripling down on investments that make coexistence possible, not walking away from them.

Not only do we need the state to commit fully to wildlife coexistence efforts, we need communities to do so as well. Coexistence only succeeds when adopted at the landscape level. If one person uses conflict deterrents and their neighbor doesn't, the entire effort can unravel. That's why California must support community-wide adoption of proven practices, with meaningful incentives that recognize real-world challenges.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has a pivotal opportunity to lead. As wolves, mountain lions, black bears and other wide-ranging species return to their historical territories, California can become a model for the nation: a place where coexistence is not a buzzword, but a guiding principle backed by significant resources, including more boots on the ground.

The tragic fate of the Beyem Seyo Pack must not be in vain. We owe it to them - and to future generations - to do better by meaningfully investing in a wildlife coexistence program that is an example for other states to follow.

Pamela Flick is the California program director for Defenders of Wildlife. She served on California Department of Fish and Wildlife's State Wolf Stakeholder Working Group and is a founding member of the Pacific Wolf Coalition.