“The Department of Fish and Wildlife, the folks that are working with the wolves, are not livestock people. They claim that they’ve got tools and ideas and things that work with livestock, but not if you love your cattle, not if understand animal husbandry…”
Taylor Torregano
The only kill the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has confirmed happened October 13, but GPS data and eyewitness reports place the Lassen wolf pack near the other dead cattle.
“The Lassen wolf pack decided that our cattle were for dinner,” Billie Roney said. She and her husband own Roney Land and Cattle Company.
They have hundreds of cows, but Roney said that didn’t make seeing one mauled by a wolf any less devastating. “I didn’t sleep for a week and I’d wake up and I was yelling, angry.”
She’s angry at the state’s 2016 Conservation Plan for Gray Wolves that prevents the Roneys from killing the endangered species to protect their livestock. “My feelings, my thoughts, my business, my checkbook,” Roney said. “Everything that I do is just collateral damage.”
She also added that though the Department of Fish and Wildlife did offer them assistance to keep the wolves away, they felt their options were inconsistent with proper herding.
“The Department of Fish and Wildlife, the folks that are working with the wolves, are not livestock people. They claim that they’ve got tools and ideas and things that work with livestock, but not if you love your cattle, not if understand animal husbandry,” Roney explained.
Because of this, the Roneys moved their livestock to their 7,000 acre ranch in north Chico earlier than usual. They don’t plan to return them to Lassen County as long as the wolves are still there. They usually bring the cows to that land every summer, but now they’re looking at other, safer options.
[paypal_donation_button]
Free Range Report
[wp_ad_camp_3]
[wp_ad_camp_2]
