Assembly Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee, Tuesday, January 27, 2026
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Assembly Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee California State Assembly
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 2
Thank you, madam chair, for including me. I'm not a city member of this committee, but I'm very thankful that, the committee was willing to hold this hearing and that I could be a part of it. My district runs for 11 counties in Northern California from the Oregon border to south of here, in Amador and Alpine County. Unfortunately, the predator wildlife conflict has been mostly focused on District 1 and is a very District 1 problem. It's our biggest issue right now.
We have, mountain lions, bears, and wolves. I I have El Dorado County that has the highest density of mountain lions in the nation. I have, Tahoe that has the highest density of black bears in the world, and then now we have wolves on top of that. I'm very concerned about our big picture management of wildlife. Our deer, antelope, and elk herds have plummeted, and we just don't have the food supply to have all of these predators, living in our area.
So they are moving. Our footprint in our communities has not grown. We're losing population. We build most of my counties build maybe a couple houses a year. We're very, very rural, very isolated.
It's a real it's a huge struggle to our resources for law enforcement, for fish and wildlife, for our counties. Our medical, we had the first black bear death in my district. We also had a young man killed by a mountain lion. We we were just we're at a tipping point, and I really appreciate the the the chair and the the members that will be here. I've already texted them that that they're taking the time to really learn about this.
We've we've taken the year and really taught my colleagues about how we live, because most of them are from urban areas, and this is not not as, as an in your face issue as it is for us in District 1. So we have a lot of people, here from the district and a lot of people watching from home, and very eager to see what we're gonna learn today. So thank you.
Speaker 3
Excellent. Great. Thank you so much. Well, good morning. Is someone of our heart hailing here from Santa Barbara?
Do you have anything you'd
Speaker 3
Well, with that, we'll commence with the first panel. Secretary Crowfoot, we're so delighted that you could be here to join us, and we'll bring together the other witnesses from our first panel while you're getting settled. So, Valerie Termini, we've got Chad Dibble. Come on down. Kevin Thomas, chief Nathaniel Arnold, and Erica Maines.
So please, you guys settle in. And thank you, secretary Cofit Cofit for making the time to be here and for your interest in the subject matter. We're delighted to have you. Please, whenever you're ready.
Speaker 4
Mister chair, thanks so much for holding this hearing and to assembly member Hadwick for, for all your leadership on this issue. I think in seven years in this role, this is the first time I've actually asked to testify before the legislature. And And you're welcome. And I really appreciate the opportunity to do so. A lot of the work in our natural resources agency, we boil down to helping all Californians and nature thrive together.
So limiting human wildlife conflict is really, really important. Now, clearly, you all and the governor and we, invest a whole lot in our communities, ensuring that they're self safe and healthy places, where people can prosper. And at the same time, I think we're all really proud of the natural world in California, world famous, scenic beauty, and also just an incredible richness of life. California is a biodiversity hotspot, one of 36 places on planet Earth that have the most diversity of plants and animals in the world, but also face real challenges to maintaining that biodiversity. So as as you both put, to open us up here, how do we how do we find this balance?
First and foremost, protecting the safety of Californians and protecting our environment and this incredible wildlife that we have here. About a quarter of our landmass, over 25,000,000 acres, can be considered prime habitat.
Speaker 4
think about 30 by 30, we're coming up towards 30, percent of the land. And a lot of that that habitat is next to communities or, in some cases, communities surround that habitat. Likewise, if we think about the population in the wildfire context, about a third of Californians live in the wildland urban interface, which is essentially where neighborhoods meet nature. So some some level of, wildlife sightings and interactions given this overlap and proximity is inevitable. But I'll say that wildlife human wildlife conflict is not inevitable.
Interaction, yes. A conflict, not inevitable. There's a lot that we can and must do to limit contact and protect the safety of people and and the our environment. Couple of clear examples are, you know, the actions that residents take to address things as basic as garbage management in a place like Tahoe really make a difference towards, keeping bears out of neighborhoods. Likewise, the work that we're doing on wildlife crossings, helping animals cross highways, is really important, not only for those animals, but for traffic safety given that traffic fatalities happen every year in California because of, of crashes into animals.
So I'm here to share how important this is to the Newsom administration and to our agency and also support the work of the colleagues at of my colleagues at the Department of Fish and Wildlife. They have an important job and a tough job, and you'll hear hear more about that. Part of their job is proactive, educating communities and residents so we prevent conflict, the most important thing that we need to do. And then, of course, responding when conflict does occur, understanding whether that conflict is, related to impacts on property or worse on public safety and then taking the actions that are needed. As they'll explain, there are certain actions that can be taken if animals are threatening or impacting public property, including getting a depredation permit to to kill or remove the animal, and likewise, a a more urgent set of actions that are enabled, to to protect public safety if there's an imminent threat of public safety.
So they'll talk more about that. Clearly, human conflict human wildlife conflict, comes in a range of dimensions, and you're we're focusing today on predators. And even within, the the bears and mountain lions and wolves topic, they're they're they're different. And I'll say that wolves in particular is pretty distinct and deserves some conversation here today both because its current impact of some of the packs on communities, and ranching and their status as an endangered species. So, clearly, I think, my my sense in doing this work is that there's actually real alignment that limiting conflict is essential.
It's essential to protect property and ultimately public safety and essential to protect this biodiversity that we have. I wanna reinforce what assembly member Hadwick is saying that while millions of Californians don't even understand this as an important issue, this is a full blown crisis in many of our rural communities. And so I appreciate the intensity with which a lot of the folks that I work with, including the county sheriffs and county supervisors, bring to this issue. And resolution and coexistence is essential. Lastly, I'll just say that today, you know, we're here to share what we've been doing and what we continue to do with the recognition that there's more work to do.
I'm proud of the progress that we've made over the years, and there's a lot of room for strengthening our work and improving our work together to really enable this coexistence. So thanks for letting me set up the table, and I'll turn it over to my colleague Valerie Termini, who is the acting director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Speaker 3
Thank you. Thank you so much. And I will say with respect to the mountain lion that's in San Francisco today, fish and game or your Department of Wildlife is on the scene. So along with the sheriffs. So we'll see interagency, collaboration.
Okay. Please, mister doctor take it away. I'm missus Tremini.
Speaker 6
Is this on? It is on. Alright. So good morning. Yes.
I am Valerie Tremini. I'm the acting director. I normally have the privilege of serving as chief deputy director at the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and thanks to Nate and his team who let the mountain lion out last night to form this issue. It really highlights I think I I also have this slide up here to sort of demonstrate wildlife is all around us. Whether you're in San Francisco, Los Angeles, or out in Siskiyou County or Sierra County, they're here.
And we, as a department, this is our mission is to work and to protect wildlife and nature for all Californians. So these headlines happening today as well as in the past, we have you've heard them all. We have p 22, the famous mountain lion in Los Angeles, the Hollywood mountain lion. We've got removals of bears, whether they're in a home under Altadena or in Tahoe. Every day, we've got the removal of the Bay Mseo pack in Sierra County.
We have the first confirmed black bear fatality in Sierra County. We have the first wildlife, fatality from mountain lions in El Dorado County. These are getting more and more, prevalent in California, and we are doing all that we can to address them. But it's not I also don't want us to only focus on the conflict. That's one part of it.
But as, madam chair, you highlighted, it's an ecosystem issue. We need to restore our prey populations. We need to restore our forests. We need to restore our wildlife areas so that we can do this work in tandem with one another. With your leadership and the secretaries and the governors, we're able to put in some pilot programs of wildlife conflict, but also our cutting the green tape initiative.
We're restoring more landscapes and habitats faster than ever before, and I don't want us to lose sight of the connectivity between wildlife restoration and habitat restoration as well as conflict space. They go together. So as the secretary highlighted, California is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. We also have 40,000,000 people, and that creates a real challenge for us and our staff and our officers to deal with. Our work to prevent conflicts while safeguarding both people and animals, you're gonna hear more about this today, but it ranges from responding to depredation events such as damage to agriculture, livestock, and property to addressing solution situations that pose imminent threats to public safety.
And just as we respond to that conflict,
Speaker 6
care for sick and injured animals, educating the public on conservation, and monitoring and responding to wildlife disease outbreaks. That's all part of conflict. We are so committed to working on this issue. We are eager to partner with cities, with sheriffs, with counties, with NGOs to work on this issue. We're here we have we're gonna go through a lot of the work that we do today, and we look forward to questions and working with you on this important issue.
So thank you so much for hosting us.
Speaker 9
madam chair, members. Can you hear me okay? K. My name is Chad Dibble, I am the deputy director for the wildlife and fisheries division at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. My spot on the panel here today is talk to you a little bit about the history of, the department's efforts with human wildlife conflict and what we've been doing.
It really started back in 2014, believe it or not, with the drought that we had in during that time. We started to see an in an uptake in, or incident response and in issues we had across the state with animals just looking for food and water and having conflict with humans and in our spaces a little bit more than we normally would. So in 2015 and, again, augmented in 2016, we received some nominal funds to help us respond to those incidents as a as a response to drought. In 2021, we continue to see those incidents increasing in numbers and responses across the state. So the state actually funded us, to take a more holistic approach, an an integrated approach into, like, addressing human wildlife conflict.
And that's really what started what we call our human wildlife conflict program. The backbone of the program was our ability to hire limited term staff. These staff specialists were specifically trained in, human wildlife handling technique or, excuse me, wildlife handling techniques and conflict incident response. It also allowed us to have a presence to track, respond, and and really be on top of what was happening across the state, across all 58 counties with those staff. In addition, the program focused on really revamping our policies to look at how we can support more coexistence, looking at depredation conflict, animal welfare, and also allowed us to do what we've talked about, community outreach.
We did a lot of community outreach with homeowners associations, late night, weekends, off hours from what our normally staff would be doing, but that allowed us to do that. One of the major outcomes from the program was what we call our human wildlife conflict toolkit. This is an online toolkit that the public can see every day that provides all sorts of information. The public can go to our website. It's kind of a pick list.
You can pick anything from bats to insects to beavers to to bears, and it provides pamphlets, information, how to tips, preventative tips, things that the local communities, individuals, cities, counties, homeowners associations can use to help educate themselves and their their community around what animals they might be dealing with and what kind of conflict they can they can resolve. One of the other major outcomes that came out of the program was our wildlife incident reporting system, and this is called what we call the WEIR. This is another online application tool where the community can go online and report an incident of wildlife observation, a property damage incident, or even ish request a depredation permit. So in front of you, we had a handout. I think that you all have that, and it displays some of the recorded data that we have through the WEIR system.
You'll note that the top five species that continually get reported are black bears, followed by mountain lions, wild pigs, coyotes, and bobcats. Over 50% of the reports we get are for depredation, some sort of damage to property or home. You'll also note that Los Angeles and El Dorado Counties have the highest incidents reported through the Weir system. The Weir system has been a great tool for us, for our staff, for the public, to allow us to help, you know, respond, track incidents in in a timely manner as as best we can. The department tracks about 6,000 reports through the WEIR system every year, but that's only a fraction of the total calls we receive.
The department, over the last several years, has had about 30 to 45,000 calls per year dealing with wildlife incident. 30 to 45,000 calls that we respond to across the state. One main point that I wanna make sure I stress today as we go through all of this panel with our with our information for you all is that conflict doesn't end when we pick up the phone and talk to a a report a reporting party, we call it, or we might do a wildlife visit to the to the actual site. Occasionally, wildlife conflict in needs further assessment. They might need, to be relocated.
They might need to be removed from the from the situation. They might need to go to a rehabilitation facility. The animal might need to be just moved to a more suitable habitat. This often requires the experience of a broader range of the department. This brings our expert veterinarians to help us with this.
It might bring in law enforcement. It definitely brings in maybe one of the 450 rehabilitation facilities that we permit, satellite offices, the zoos we work with across the state to handle and manage these animals depending on what we run into. On average, a 100,000 wild animals are received by rehabilitation facilities every year. And despite our best efforts, unfortunately, sometimes when these animals do not get intervention, they become public safety or meaning they have some sort of human interaction, or human, involvement. This is where our law enforcement and you'll hear more about this later.
This is where our law enforcement steps in. And let me be clear, they will be the same way. We do not take public safety lightly. It requires hours of time and immediate response by our folks in order to engage in that incident. We have to make sure that we respond to the site to collect the evidence, understand what's happening, DNA profiles of the species, identify the sex, the age, make sure that we then take the appropriate steps to manage potentially offending animal.
And this requires very fast turnaround times for our folks, specifically when we're talking about DNA. If an incident happens in Southern California, we get it we'll our officers will be out. They'll collect a sample. That has to get to Sacramento. We get a DNA profile.
In the meantime, they're trying to capture the animal. They capture what we think is the offending animal, matches the sex, matches the species, DNA profile. We need to confirm all of that before we take any management on the animal that we think we've captured. We also have to manage any community, relations in between that, media, public inquiries. There's all sorts of communications that happen, which brings in a whole another sector of the department for us to be able to handle any one of these incidents at a at a time.
Last thing I'll notice that in 2024, as you all know, I think that the one time money's expired. And I wanna make it clear. The department recognizes that we have potentially seen a gap in service, and folks have felt that. And I think you'll hear some evidence of that today from other testimonies. We continue to try to find, sustainable funding for this program while we continue to work hard to ensure that we're looking inside our existing programs and our existing efforts to figure out how we continue to provide this this service.
We take conflict seriously. We take it to the best of our ability, and I promise you, we try and respond as proactively as we can every time we can. So I appreciate your time today. Thanks for listening. I'm gonna turn it over to deputy director Thomas to talk to you a little bit about regional implementation and how that looks like across the state.
Speaker 5
Thank you, Chad. Thank you, madam chair and members. Can you hear me okay? My name is Kevin Thomas. I'm the deputy director for our regional operations.
Our regions are the on the ground liaisons between the counties, the public, and how we implement phishing game code and policies as put out by Chad's shop and our phishing game code. I wanted to touch really quick on something Chad said about the resources. In the regions, we have spent a a particular amount of time trying to analyze and look at how our resources are spent on human wildlife conflict. Obviously, as times change and things evolve, we have to analyze where our resources are going and what we're assigning staff to conduct. And in the regions, we've took a particular approach to put a a vested effort in increasing our efforts in the human wildlife wildlife conflict space, particularly in hot spots like Lake Tahoe, Sierra Madre, the wolf scene.
So we have been able to fill some of that gap that Chad described, but we continue to analyze our workload and where we can make improvements in it. One of the things we've discussed is depredation permits. There's a some, I guess, misunderstanding about how those work. Depredation permits are allowed in fishing game code to provide the public an opportunity to seek resolution for damage they have to their property as the result of wildlife. It could be a bear crawling through a window and going through a house.
It could be a mountain lion eating someone's chickens. There's various things that someone can apply for a depredation permit for. When that per permit request comes in, it comes into the region, and we assign a staff to evaluate what's happening on the ground. So that staff will contact the reporting party as Chad Chad described. We'll look at what stuff they have on the ground to reduce conflict, whether it be fencing or electric mats or putting away their garbage, those types of things, and then we'll make recommendations to that reporting party based on what we find.
In some cases, it'll be a nonlethal deterrent, like add a fence here or add an electric mat. And in some cases, we will issue a lethal permit that allows them to take an animal for their property damage as defined in fishing game code. We have spent a lot of time in recent years making sure that when we do these, we do them thoroughly and that we fully analyze what's happening on the ground. That includes, in many cases, collecting DNA from the scene to verify if an animal is or isn't the offending animal, working with homeowners on those nonlethal measures, as well as educating the public about the WEIR system, how to report, and how to get a response back from us. You'll hear from several of the folks that'll speak today about the calls that go into other entities, whether it be the sheriffs or the local PD or NGOs.
And all of those folks work together cooperatively to address the situation and try to provide the reporting party some some resolve to their to their issue. The next thing I wanted to discuss is a particular thing we're doing in the Tahoe Basin that we started a few years ago, which is a novel approach to kind of bear management, which is a trap tag haze program. Several years ago, we looked at and noticed that we were having issues identifying particular bears, particularly around visual identification. The public would report things and say it was a bear with a spot here or it was this bear that had a weird ear here, and we were trying to make decisions based on that. And we decided we would step up our game, and with the help of law enforcement, we started taking DNA samples from almost every incident that we have in Lake Tahoe Basin.
Whether it be a break in, a trap tag haze event, a public safety event, every single thing. We collect DNA now, and we've started building a database of how that interacts with the public. As part of that program, we are also collaring and hazing animals. So we would trap them in areas where they're not supposed to be, in and around homes, in and around garbage. And then we take them to a site, color them, take, obviously, vital data, and then haze them as we release them to try to deter that behavior of coming into those situations.
Some of the things that we've learned in just a few short years from that is that a lot of our conflict stems from the same bears. The DNA evidence clearly shows that bears are passing on this behavior through their lineages. So from adult to sow to cub and on onward. We have a what I would call a genetic tree of a family that's three generations now that every single member has exhibited conflict behavior from learning from their parents. So we have three generations now that have resulted in probably about twenty percent of the conflict in a particular area from one family of bears.
So this stuff's really important, and it and it helps us learn how to manage that going into the future. If only 1% of the bears are causing the problem, then we can learn how to focus our efforts and tackle that and leave the other 99 99% to to be available in the wild and conduct their normal behavior. The last thing I wanna touch on is cooperative efforts. So, obviously, with any of these things, we have to work with many, many groups to get things accomplished. And in Tahoe, we have what's called the Tahoe interagency bear team.
It's a cooperative of agencies, departments, landowners, that work together to provide a consistent message on bear management, trash management, nonlethal measures, provide information about bear behavior and how to protect your property, and are cohesively working to, provide that information to the public and make a safe space for all in the Tahoe Basin. So those are a few of the things that we're working on the region. Chief Arnold here is gonna go over some of the, law enforcement stuff, and thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
Speaker 10
Thank you, madam chair members. My name is Nathaniel Arnold, and I am the chief of law enforcement for the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Can you all hear me okay? Perfect. My portion of the panel is to provide you with some information about the law enforcement division in general, human wildlife conflict and coexistence, and specifically public safety wildlife.
The law enforcement division consists of approximately 500 wildlife officers and 50 professional staff members. That is for the entire state of California. That they're responsible for patrolling a 159,000 square miles of California. That equals to 1,100 miles of coastline and three nautical miles out to sea, all marine protected areas, 30,000 miles of rivers and streams, 4,800 lakes and reservoirs, and 80 major rivers. And I say that in context because this is one of the duties that we do with as it relates to protecting all of those resources I just mentioned.
Wildlife officers respond when there is a physical attack on a person by wildlife or a public safety wildlife threat that is reported to the department. Wildlife officers investigate the report, gather evidence, witness statements, and if warranted, will youth euthanize the responsible animal as confirmed by DNA analysis as it comes in. In the last five years, talking 2020 to 2025, the law enforcement division has responded to over 230 reported public safety wildlife incidents. Now at times, to the nature of the law enforcement division's responsiveness and work with other allied agencies, we also respond and assist with nonpublic safety issues. An example would be wounded or displaced wildlife.
The law enforcement division also manages the wildlife forensic lab, which consists of four wildlife forensic specialists who analyze evidence for criminal investigations, prepare finding reports, testify in court on those findings on behalf of the state. These forensic specialists conduct all of the department's DNA analysis for wildlife attack incidents as well as human wildlife conflict. The primary function of the lab is support wildlife officers in poaching investigations to compare samples taken from items from different species of wildlife our officers may encounter during wildlife trafficking type investigations. However, in the last five years from 2020 to 2025, the Wildlife Forensic Lab has conducted DNA analysis for the 230 public safety wildlife investigations and over 950 human wildlife conflicts. And if you look at the last slide that's on the screen and in your handouts, I'll go over some of that material.
Of the 230 public safety wildlife investigations, the breakdown is follows. 99 coyote, 73 bear, about 19% in the Lake Tahoe Basin, 27 lion, and then 33 other wildlife, deer, river, otter, those type. Prior to 2020, the law enforcement division and wildlife forensic lab investigated less than 20 per year. So this workload has absolutely doubled. Of the new 950 human wildlife conflict incidents, the wildlife forensic lab has processed over 809 bear samples, 64 wolf, 81 additional wolf related just to the strike team in Sierra County, Plumas, a 126 lion, 21 shark, and 99 coyotes.
Prior to 2020, the wildlife forensic lab processed samples from less than 10 human wildlife conflicts cases per year. And there's some different reasons for that change in policies. And, of course, as we mentioned, you know, climate change, drought, wildland fires, everything that we're facing. So for specific questions, more than happy to take them, and and thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
Speaker 11
Sure. Good morning, everybody. My name is Erica Maines. I'm the deputy chief of our law enforcement division. I manage the day to day operations for division.
And that includes overseeing the work and activities of our wildlife forensics lab. So I'm just here today for support and to answer any specific questions regarding the data. Thank you.
Speaker 3
Excellent. Thank you so much for being here. I see we've got a couple other folks joining us. Some of them are Coloza, and some of them are Harabedian. I'm gonna any questions from anybody?
Let me start there. I bet you got some, given what's happening in your neck of the woods. Senator Coloza.
Speaker 12
Thank you so much, chair Pappin, and thanks for your presentation today. I represent parts of Los Angeles, like Echo Park, Silver Lake, Los Feliz. And, you know, I live in Eagle Rock personally, and I know that we have increased sightings of coyotes, like, even where I live. And so I guess hearing what's been reported and what you know about, curious to hear like how much underreporting you feel like there is. I feel like maybe one of the things that was surprising to me about the data was actually the highest number of incidents in LA County, which I was actually that's not where I thought you would have the highest incidents.
So
Speaker 10
so just to make sure that I understand. And so what's the number of that we feel that's not reporting?
Speaker 12
Yeah. Just curious if you have thoughts on underreporting only because I've seen personal accounts of this, and I, you know, don't immediately think of, oh, let me report this. Now I will. Now I'll report all of these to you. And so just curious what we can do to partner.
You know, we all represent very specific districts and wanna make sure that I'm properly informing my communities and my constituents of the resources that you have because it may not automatically trigger them to report some of these incidents to to your agency.
Speaker 10
Well, thank you very much. And and we absolutely have underreporting, I I would say, by the communities. We we try to get out there, educate, do the best that we can. But I'm sure when people see coyotes or experience something that, you know, generally what they call is to dispatch 911. And they will refer over to our department when that happens, but it's the severity of the incident that occurs at that time.
So I I I'd absolutely appreciate that. And I don't know if my colleagues if there's more about the educational component.
Speaker 9
Yeah. Is this on? Yep. Yeah. K.
So what I'd say is that it really depends on the species, and it depends on what the setting you're in. If you're in a rural community, depending on the species, they have may they may have different means to take care of the animals themselves. They may have more educational experience around how to handle and deal with that animal. They won't report it. When you get into some of the urban areas where they have less ability to manage those animals or treat different take care of different things or they're in a bigger setting where those animals are more in conflict, they may have a tendency to report it.
It really depends on the species. And as we begin to look at that, that's part of what our team has been trying to do is try to assess that. And it helps us to know where do we go in and try and educate. And in the same sense, some communities that are more educated, they won't report because they know what they can do. They know what steps to take.
Others that don't, and the more that there's awareness around it, they'll report it. So it's really it's kind of a nuance in there when you see this, but it has a lot to do with the species and then just the the actual settings that the individual's in and where they are in the state.
Speaker 12
Okay. And for for my own clarification as somebody who wants to report it only because there are so many sightings. You have somewhere on your website where I should be going as
Speaker 9
Yes. You can go to our weird system. The wildlife incident reporting system.
Speaker 12
I missed this. That's okay. Came in late. Absolutely. Okay.
That's super helpful. I look forward to reaching out to your office to better understand some of the resources that we can share with our constituents on the work that you do.
Speaker 6
If I can just add, we'd also be happy to follow-up with you with our local field staff and do community engagement, town halls, things like that so we can also connect the dots of, like, where is the information on the wildlife reporting system? So it's it's not innate that people know where to go and report this stuff. So we'd like to figure out how to make connect those dots for your community members too.
Speaker 14
Madam chair, thank you for allowing me to sit in, mister secretary. Thank you. Thank you for everything you're doing in Altadena and and all the work you're doing, and thank you to all of you. Let me just say I appreciate the shout out to Sierra Madre. I represent Altadena and Sierra Madre.
I grew up in Sierra Madre. I was on the city council and mayor there for a number of years. We saw a lot of each other, and I appreciate everything that that your department did and does, on a daily basis down there. You know, the the bear incidents in the San Gabriel Valley, especially Sur Madre, have now risen to, I think, daily occurrences, and I think we probably take up way too much of your time, relative to the limited amount of resources you have. And so let me just say, historically, you guys have been real lifesavers for my community.
Appreciate all the help. But this is really complicated stuff. And, you know, we ran a bill last year to bring the Tahoe Basin program to the San Gabriel Valley. Applaud you on the Tahoe Basin program. It's really innovative.
It's worked extremely well. Would love to see it in San Gabriel Valley. Obviously, resources are really tough to come by right now, and I understand the challenges there. But I guess my only question is, what do you think aside from doing the Tahoe Basin program, which I think is is really just spot on and and could be used in other places aside from that? Because I think it's really hard to do that because it is, again, human intensive, time intensive, resource intensive.
What can we do, especially in Sierra Madre, Alcadena right now, given what's going on, to to help address it? Because I do think that our theory has always been having lived there and grown up there, it's it's it's a few amount of bears causing a lot of the problems, and we wish we had the data to confirm it. But how can we do it without the full blown Tahoe Basin program? Thank you, madam chair.
Speaker 5
Yeah. If we could, I'll take that one. There's a few things we've actually been discussing with Sierra Madre, which is a coalition of the cities there working on a cohesive management plan across all the cities. Obviously, there's four or five cities there that all have the same issue with bears coming down from the mountains into the city there. We made a little progress on that a year or so ago, but we I would like to kick that back off.
We've been doing a kinda light trap tag haze, I would call it, with the staff that we have of trying to identify the bears. We do have some need for increased genetic analysis down there, which is something that's on our plate as well. The city itself of Sierra Madre has done a great job of educating the public. The police department down there has really been helpful. They've been an ally to us, And continuing those relationships, I think, would would benefit everybody.
And if we all can pitch in a little more, I think we can get to a solution there.
Speaker 3
I'm guessing assembly member assemblywoman Hadwick has got some questions.
Speaker 2
Yes. I I have a lot. We've had a lot of these discussions before too. What ability does CDFW have to increase the flow of information with our ranchers about Wolf location? What resources do you need to make that happen?
I know that's been one of the biggest frustrations, I think, coming from the the producers is they don't know. They they want to be proactive. They want to be able to do these things, but they don't have the information to make that possible. We're gonna split this answer. K.
Speaker 9
I'm gonna talk about where we've been, and Kevin's gonna tell you a little bit about what we're doing. So as most of the folks in the room know here, you know, it's it's been a difficult thing for us to work through. So with with the wolves moving back into California, we have been trying since day one and the first time we had a collar on an animal, to work out how best to communicate with ranchers. And the history of it is, you know, we would we had our staff biologist who's on a federal grant, and their job was to get up every morning with the collar or collars we had, look at a map, and try to contact the ranchers that we thought that the wolf was in the area the night before and give them some information about, hey. You might wanna go take a look, make sure there's no depredation events that happened last night, check on your cattle, see what's going on.
That's basically the early onslaught of it. This was one staff member every single day, weekends, holidays, what have you. You can imagine the frustrations and gaps that probably happened in that space with the ranchers who were last to know, last on the text message thread, or however it played out. We've continued that effort. And as wolves has wolves have expanded across the state, we've tried to replicate that with additional staff, pulling on other resources and other folks to try and help out in that space in our wolf world.
Just last year, we made that public. So the we introduced our wolf tracking tool, which is a map online that every morning as the satellite sends the information down to us, it also sends it down to the website, and the information creates a polygon on the map that says where the wolf was last night or last time that that caller checked in. That's the same data we get in our hand that we used to text out every day. So that's where we're at right now. We have those both of those communications in the in the in the example of Sierra Valley.
We were working hand in hand with folks daily trying to communicate that. We were adjusting callers, trying to figure out the right methods as we were trying to work through that whole strike team and those efforts there, which was a little bit unique. There's all sorts of things, as you know, that happen when you start changing collar times and downloads and uploads and GPS data. You'd lose battery life on the collar, so there's lots of technicalities in between that. But I think Kevin can talk about where we're trying to go to continue to enhance our ability to work with ranchers and local communities in that in just in sharing that information that we have.
Speaker 5
Yeah. I think we all realize that data and sharing data is key to the solution for everybody. What we've been pursuing in the last, I'd say, four to six weeks is this idea around using liaisons in the counties and then having what we call data sharing agreements with them so that rather than rely on one person to distribute out the information, we can have an agreement with multiple people who can be a local on the ground, interact with the ranchers in the community, and provide that information in a more timely manner that will allow them to address the conflicts that are happening on their land. So that's the steps that we're taking right now. We have about three or four of them in progress, and we're in meetings with all six or seven of the counties who have the highest wolf rates right now to further discussions with them as well.
Speaker 2
And then trust has been a huge issue between the state. My district is very slow to trust government, and we also don't report sightings at all. I didn't even I I'd be really curious to see. I noticed my county is number 53 on there. But would you would CDFW be willing to have the sheriffs the local sheriffs come alongside them on investigations and and be involved in those, accompany them, or make observations, just be more involved in the process?
Is that something that would be a a possibility just to build back that trust? Because our local our local sheriff's departments are our our local sheriffs are elected. They're trusted by the communities where I just think that might be a good bridge to bring back that trust.
Speaker 9
I think the answer is yes. And so I I think there's also a nuance here to understand, coming alongside to observe an investigation, be a part of investigation if there's a depredation incident. It's it's something we do. We actually rely most of the time, actually, the counties and the ranchers will we rely on wildlife services with the federal government to do that work for us, or it's our staff. It really is like, hey.
Something happened. Who can get there the fastest so that we can try to get on scene before the evidence is you know, sort of deteriorates or something else happens. So sheriffs are more than welcome. I think what you might be talking about is actual determinations in in the investigation, and that is something we are also exploring with folks. So along with the county liaison role that Kevin's talking about about, you know, sharing data and information, we're also having conversations about how to get more people trained on the ability to do the investigation, which leads to a confirmed or probable or unknown conclusion about the depredation and whether it was truly a wolf attack or whether it was a coyote or a natural cause or what may have happened, which also then rolls into the compensation place because compensation for ranchers is based on a confirmed or probable confirmation of a depredation event.
So we're working hard to figure out how to do that. That's not as easy as folks think. There's a lot of evidence that needs to come, again, back to our DNA samples, contamination of the the samples, making sure that we actually take the right sample. The samples can be read when it gets back to our offices in Sacramento to make that determination. And there's a lot of things that you need to understand.
I don't wanna get into detail here on what a depredation event looks like, but there's a lot of detail there to be able to confirm. Was it actually a wolf attack? What happened there, and how does that work? So we're having those conversations, and and and I I think we're we're open to exploring how we can help us do our job, help you, the benefit of the public, get their the things that they want in in in that space. So
Speaker 5
Yeah. This was a topic that was brought up at the the department hosted a large county event with representatives from each county back in December. And then we've had further discussions with the local county groups that we've been working with to identify if there is a process, particularly on those events that are deemed, you know, unknown or not assigned to a specific animal, how to talk about those and discuss those going forward. So we have been in those discussions with the local county folks to try to find a resolution that works for everybody.
Speaker 4
And I'll just reinforce, one, the recognition that we need to build trust, first and foremost. Secondly, that we're moving into, you know, essentially a a situation where we have to adaptively manage wolf populations much more nimbly than we've had to in the past. And then third is, you know, thanks to the department's leadership, I think they and we are interested in institutionalizing what that partnership looks like so that, you know, our the department's activities are not a black box. And that information sharing, for example, as Kevin shared, is in real time, and there's a real understanding on what the expectation is and on adaptive management and depredations, etcetera. So it's definitely been a learning curve, and there've been a lot of pain points that we'll probably unpack here today.
But the commitment is to build that trust by institutionalizing the partnership as we adaptively manage.
Speaker 2
And you kind of went in already. Is there going to be some form of appeals process for those depredations that aren't either aren't investigated or have been unfounded?
Speaker 5
Yeah. That's a that's a discussion we have to have with all of the stakeholders, and I think we've kicked off the discussion. But I don't think we've come to an any kind of agreement on a process yet, but we are having that discussion with all of our stakeholders across the wolf space. Yeah.
Speaker 2
I'm almost done. I promise. So then what are we doing to accelerate the wolf management management plan plan and what phases we're on? And how are we allowing for more adaptive management like you guys have talked about so we can just be more effective?
Speaker 9
Yeah. I I think I'd maybe correct that we're not accelerating the management plan per se with phasing. The phasing occurs based on the population and how it's doing. The phasing of the management plan and what steps we're in as far as recovery are really dictated by the number of pups, breeding pairs, the population at the end of a given year, and how that plays out. We are, continuing to work on the management plan at large.
It's a resource thing as well. As you know, we we have a very limited staff. We spend a lot of time in the field with all of the folks and which pulls away from the time of doing it. We have partnered with Berkeley and other parties. I think you'll hear some other folks today trying to continue on the research side and the understanding, which is more in that management space of where are we going, what are we doing, what are we learning.
Now that we have more wolves than one when we started this, you know, campaign, you're learning a lot, and they're different. I know a wolf is a wolf, and you can look across the West as how wolves have, you know, transpired and moved across the states, but it is also California. So there's some familiarity with what other states have experienced as wolves have started to recolonize in places, but there's also some newness as to what California is and how we need to thrive and live with them on the landscape. So we're continuing to do that. We we said last year that we were going to try and go back and look at review of our of the species and work through some of that stuff.
And then, frankly, we got caught up in the middle of Sierra Valley, which pulled almost every not almost every resource we had in the department that dealt with Wolf was sitting in that valley and or on a phone call dealing with what was going on in that valley. So that's part of our plan this year. Coming out of the meeting we had that Chuck I mean, that Kevin mentioned in December was to sort of think about how does that our next step with those communities. And we really feel like there's two pathways that we need to focus on. One is to talk about revision or reimagining what the compensation program.
We've had a couple years of it in play. Is there some tweaks we need? We've heard some folks that think that maybe there needs to be more compensation in this space or this space or we need to readjust here or there. I think that's a conversation we need to continue to have, which which you've talked about. The second place is where do we go with science and research and management?
And to me, those are separate meetings, lots of the same crossover stakeholders, but a pathway for us to think about how do we do this collectively. We did it ten years ago, very open forum, lots of, you know, works working stakeholder groups, lots of input. And then we've kind of been sitting in this, I don't wanna say silo, but it's basically living with wolves as this happened. We need to reinitiate that process, and we're just trying to figure out how do we do that because the stakeholder has gotten larger. Right?
It was a smaller subset when we started with one wolf. It's a large community now. There's eight, nine counties that are affected with wolves or have wolves in their backyard. There's a larger subset of ranchers. So we're still working through how to make sure we do that transparently, but also, you know, we can progress in a in a manner that's actually producing products and having something for people to, give us some comments on.
Speaker 2
I I just wanna reiterate that sense of urgency because our our for winter, our cows are moved. They're coming back early March, and that's when our kills started last year, and we've had this crisis. So, it's on the minds of many of these ranchers in the room, what that's gonna look like, and we had hoped there'd be faster progress. Do you think that we will have a depredation permit process at all in the future
Speaker 4
I mean, here's what I would say, and this is you you you and and we are living this, but for those who are not, obviously, the the the major difference between management of, like, a bear and and a wolf is the wolf is this endangered species that were that's protected under federal and state law. So there's not a depredation process to enable the killing of a wolf if there's property damage, for example. But as we experienced in Sierra Valley, at the end of the day, you know, the department made a very, very, very difficult decision to take Wolves, and they did that after essentially all nonlethal interventions were exhausted. And so we're going to continue to discharge our legal responsibility to enable the recovery of this endangered species, but absolutely do it in
Speaker 4
that protects public safety and addresses the very real economic impact on these ranchers. So I think you asked about sort of what is the arc of management from here, and I think that's playing out in real time. Mhmm. But, ultimately, where I sit as a nonexpert is coexistence is critical. Mhmm.
If if wolves are going to coexist, communities need to understand and feel comfortable with that and understand that there's a process. So I imagine that this process will continue to evolve. The tools will be better better, you know, known and used that in the in the near term, we're really minimizing that ultimate decision that we had to make in in Sierra Valley. But we're committed to being partners with you through this because it's going to take the partnerships to actually enable the coexistence.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And last question, I promise. I do wanna thank you for all your work on this. We we it's didn't go unnoticed how much how many resources were brought to our Sierra County, one of the smallest counties in the state population wise. We do appreciate that.
I think it the problem just keeps expanding, and it's my my it's our biggest issue. It's the thing I get the most calls about. I get pictures every day I wake up to what those scenes look like, which are things my colleagues don't wanna see on my phone anymore. How much money would you need? What what do you what funding do you need?
Because I know you guys took a cut. You took a hit already. What is the what is the number that you need to be able to do this and do this right to keep everyone safe and keep our get our balance back?
Speaker 4
My sense of Yeah. Reluctance that you experience is just the deference to the policymakers, the governor, and the legislature at setting the budget. Mhmm. And, ultimately, you all have a much broader field of vision for what the state priorities are. I think the case we would make is that and this is not a secret, but more resources provide more capacity.
And we've we've seen how the the surge in resources that existed during the general fund surplus enabled a lot more proactivity, which is important to limiting conflict. So I think we can leave it there. Resources equal technology equals expertise equals people in the field and capacity and partnerships.
Speaker 6
And maybe to just add on, just as we and most of you have probably heard this before. When we went through the service based budget process, right, looking at every nook and cranny of the work that we do, there's resource gaps that can be filled with technology. And I think Wolves is a prime example of where we need to bring in new innovative technology to think through how we're managing the cows and the wolves on the ground. And so it's not just a one for one. It's not like we need five staff there and five staff there and five staff there.
We need to think like, the example we like to use is a law enforcement boat. Right? So we have ships North Of California that can work in enforcement all along the California Coast. That one ship serves as, like, five staff. I'm making stuff up now, but the point is is that technology is gonna be a way that's less resource intensive that we can use to help manage these things in real time, and we're really looking forward to exploring how we do that together.
Speaker 15
Well, thank you very much to all the panelists. This has been really helpful, and I appreciate Secretary Crowfoot giving the reality check on the budget. That is what we're trying to do, though, now is build our budget for this area. So we we do need a little more help with that. I don't have any context about how much money the one time money was and what that means in relation to the gap that you might need to have a fully functioning program, understanding the technology might help be more efficient about that.
But I also understand that as these crises occur, you're having to shift resources from other things to take care of those things. Those things, you know, get put to the side, and that has a consequence too. So I really just need a lot more information about, you know, what were the resources required for the Wolf Strike team? How much is the depredation compensation in context of your budget? You know, is there a conversation about when we're compensating ranchers for an incident, are we asking them to have made taken steps to prevent that incident?
Is that part of the depredation process? Is there a true partnership in that respect? Seems like there would be minimum levels of activity that somebody would have to do to make sure that they're preserving their livestock in that complicated urban wildlife context. Just a million
Speaker 9
different questions about some background history that's Yeah. Okay. It's public information. You just have to do a lot of homework. So I mentioned earlier 2015 and 2016 when we really kinda kicked off some of these efforts and saw some incident increases.
I believe in both of those years as part of drought packages, it was about a million dollars, the department received. And that was just to enhance our ability over time. Maybe we hired some side aids to really just respond to it in some of the immediate spaces where we were experiencing drought across the state. If you all remember, that was a pretty bad one. In '21, '22, when we were funded again, that was a onetime investment biodiversity BCP that went through.
That was a $7,000,000, benefit to the department or or budget for the department. That carried through. And, again, I believe it was '23 that we received another tranche of 5,000,000 through a drought another drought, unfortunately, drought response package. So those are the funds we've received to support human wildlife conflict over about the last ten years. Those monies are typically loaded so that we have an extended encumbrance, so they're not just a one year dollar, maybe two years to encumber, three years to liquidate, if you're familiar with the budget processes.
So those have allowed us to kinda stretch that out over time. Those funds in twenty one to twenty three and '23 supported about 20 limited term staff across the state. And so for those of you that don't understand it, our limited term staff, they're not permanent. Right? They're a two year assignment.
And part of that struggle that we had is that when somebody gets a two year assignment, potentially gets hired as a limited term, about the time that two years expiring, they're leaving. And we're trying to now retrain specialized highly specialized staff to go learn these new jobs all over again. So there's there's some capacity issues when you when you look at that, but that's about where it landed. I would say that compensation so in the wolf program, we've had some compensation, but it's a little bit different when you talk wolf and just in general human wildlife conflict. We, as a department, don't have a program to support individuals for just general conflict.
We don't pay them to fortify their house or build a chicken coop better or what have you. In the wolf compensation world, it's a little different. The compensation program we have has three prongs in it. First one is a payment for direct loss. So if somebody experiences depredation, they can seek reimbursement at fair market value.
We'll get into the details, but essentially reimbursement for that. The second prong, as we call it prong two, is support for nonlethals. So that program actually has the ability to pay livestock operators to implement these tools, put in flattery, help with range riders, help with lights, help with different things. They can actually apply for a grant, if you will, that gives them the funding to be able to fortify their properties. The third one is what we call pay for presence.
And, again, you might hear some of this later, which is actually trying to get at the indirect loss for ranchers. So just having wolves on the on on their in on their floor, the presence of them around their cattle that might adjust their fecundity rates or how much weight they're gaining in the field this summer for the stresses of just having wolf or maybe not having birthing at all. So there's a there's a whole formula in science and things that go through that. And so those are the three prongs. The first year we received funding for the compensation program, thanks to the legislature.
This was a legislative ad. It was $3,000,000. Took us a little while to build that program with stakeholder input, but that money went pretty fast once you rolled it out into the nonlethal grants and as pay for presence rolled out. This year and so you were in 2526. In 2425, we received $600,000 because the 3,000,000 was gone.
We are just finishing up that $600,000 now. We've only opened up the program to direct loss. That is not that much money in this in the grand scheme of what that program takes to run, So we thought it was wise to continue to reserve those funds as long as we could to ensure we could continue to pay for direct loss and and ranchers experience direct loss. We still have $2,000,000 right now that we're working through, as Kevin mentioned, in ways that we can most strategically work. That was this year's add, again, into the budget of 2526.
So that's where we're at right now. And we have promised that we will hold this a subset of those funds to continue direct loss for the ranchers that are experiencing that directly, and we're working through these conversations that we've been talking about about how to apply the remaining of those funds to the best of our ability that supports the ranching communities, us, all these things we're talking about, technology, data sharing, trust, etcetera. So we're we're working through that now. So is that helpful with some background on dollars, or is that too fast?
Speaker 15
was writing quickly. And so let me see what I got. Going way back, you got an extra million 2536, so that's kinda not relevant for our current budget cycles. But you got 7,000,000 in 2122. You got an extra 5,000,000 in '23.
That helped pay for 20 limited response term staff for over a two year period. And then additionally, beyond that, you got $3,000,000. And then is 600,000 additional or is that the leftover of the 300,000?
Speaker 9
And those funds have all gone directly to the program. That's another thing that we've talked about. Those funds weren't available for the department to manage the funds, run the grants, run the program. They're directly every dollar has gone directly back to the producers.
Speaker 15
So the 7,000,000 and the 5,000,000 is $12,000,000 plus the $3,000,000 and the $2 is another $5,000,000 So about $17,000,000 over the last four years, that was one time.
Speaker 3
And just to clarify, the last part of it was just for your wolf program. For the word compensation twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen was the wildlife conflict program, which is more general.
Speaker 3
So money specifically invested for wolves, I think it was to please miss Hadwick before she got here. I'm certain of it. Very effective. Advocacy prior to. Alright.
Assemblymember Gonzalez, take it away.
Speaker 17
Thank you, madam. Thank you, madam chair. First and foremost, thank you to secretary Crowfoot for your continued advocacy for the Salton Sea region. I I follow you on LinkedIn to keep track of your of your efforts down there because we absolutely need more eyes, more collaboration in the region. As noted here, I I represent the Southeast Corner Of California.
So I know we have a lot of North state folks here and some Southern California, but I'm all the way down at the bottom with the 36 assembly district encompasses Riverside County, San Bernardino County, all of Imperial Counties. A little bit larger than the state of New Hampshire, and we also have 12 sovereign nations in that region. My question is is really towards manpower in that region. What is the footprint of CDFW in Imperial County?
Speaker 5
I I don't know an exact number off the top of my head. I can say we have the Salton Sea program down there, which has, I think, about 12 staff that work directly on Salton Sea itself. We have our Imperial Wildlife Area that has about eight or nine staff down there that work on the wildlife area. And then we have a half dozen or so folks that are with wildlife management, permitting, fisheries management, those types of things that work out of the headquarters office in Ontario. So that's kind of a rough ballpark, I guess.
Speaker 10
And then I would say for wildlife officers in that particular county, around five, that that cover and span throughout usually a a squad of officers.
Speaker 17
Okay. So we're we're looking at about, let's call it, science administration folks, and five law enforcement. Right? With with that being said, I go back to, you know, the Colorado River, which is in in my district, the largest body of water in California, the Salton Sea. And I get it.
We're we're desert, so we have a different set of predators in in our area. What is from a law enforcement perspective, first and foremost, what are you seeing as the challenge down there? I
Speaker 10
think, especially in in that particular area, we do a lot of work with wildlife trafficking. So things that are illegal, we we work closely with other nations to make sure what's coming into California and what's going out of California. So trying to deal with all the ports of entry is one. We have some human wildlife conflict in that area as well. Maybe not as much as what we see up in the North State, but we we definitely have, especially coyote in that area and what have you, and kinda everything in between, even from the theft of Sage to other things that that occur in in those counties that we work diligently and with other mutual aid law enforcement agencies to combat.
Speaker 17
I'm glad you you pointed into the angle that I was going going towards. You know, I represent the the border between Mexico and The and and California and The United States. Obviously, the traffic of of fentanyl and illicit drugs is a huge thing. The trafficking of humans and human slavery is also a a big thing. But when it comes to, if you will, your scope, so to speak, the trafficking of wildlife, whether living or or deceased, is also an issue that doesn't get much attention.
And I I guess people on the outsides of our region don't realize what a big industry that is. The trafficking of both live and and dead, the trafficking of meat across there. And, yes, we do have our customs and border protection that are trying to do their piece with respect to agriculture and the meats piece. But, really, you know, as I as I look at it from a California perspective, right now, let's kind of leave the feds off to the side. What what are you what's the dollar amount that you are seeing, you don't get have to give me approximate, in that industry with respect to the trafficking across the the the border?
Speaker 10
Great question. Because we look at it almost holistically for all of California for the trafficking that's coming in. Like, we just made a a very significant case out of Madera and Fresno Counties on trafficking of mostly elephant parts that were coming in. It's in the millions of dollars. We could try to narrow it down for specifically for the Southern Part of California.
But as we look at it, we we we do look for kind of the entirety of California for ports coming in. And and like I said earlier, with 500 wildlife officers total, that's it's that's a lot of being one of the major ports of entries that we have in California and a major consumer of, unfortunately, illicit wildlife products.
Speaker 17
And do you have any restrictions with respect to you know, SB 54 is is an issue, now we're talking about animals. Right? Right right now. But do you have any restrictions with collaboration with federal law enforcement as it relates to s p 54? Can you work with feds?
Speaker 10
Yes. We can work with feds, but obviously not with immigration efforts.
Speaker 17
Right. So so your ability to work with the our our federal your federal counterparts is unrestricted?
Speaker 17
So the the reason I asked that is because if I'm instance, right, I'm using my investigator hat. Right? If I have a bag of bad stuff Mhmm. That is animal or whatever, and it crosses the international border, realistically speaking, we're we're we're we assume that the port of entry will catch it first. Assuming that they don't catch it first and it that now gets inland, the chain of investigation could potentially land in in your lab.
Right? You're in Mendocino County, and you have you you you get a a find. What is the the study, or is there data that says, hey. We're we're receiving a lot of stuff coming in from the southern border, and are you collaborating with respect to to that? I guess I'm what I'm looking for is show me the show me the data that says, hey.
We got a lot of stuff happening here, and it's coming this way. The reason why I asked that question is because data will then inform budget. Right? Oh, man. We we have a huge problem, but we only have 500 officers.
And down here in the desert, we got, like, one that's if you will, because of twenty four hour shift, five equals one supervisor, which means four, and we're talking about three shifts. Right? So we're looking at one person, really, on duty plus a supervisor on duty. Am I getting my numbers right?
Speaker 10
Yeah. But we also have in in addition to that, we also have our special operations teams. So if you're look solely focused on wildlife trafficking, that's what they're sole focused on, our undercover teams, Internet wildlife trafficking. We have positions for those few positions, but but positions that we do look into that, and, of course, our ports of entry officers as well.
Speaker 17
Do you have data that shows where these investigations had let have led to as in where their originating point of entry is?
Speaker 10
Yes. If if we are able to catch it at the port, it is. But we also do, like, fish business inspections, tax other inspections, Internet being probably our biggest that we do that we will go see. That may not identify the exact port of entry as it comes in, but we always try and do that.
Speaker 17
I'd I'd love to understand more about your your the patterns of activity Sure. Happening in California with respect to them coming inland because that will help inform us or help I'm I'm I'm pro law enforcement, so I wanna make sure that you have the right resources. And if we are not looking at it appropriately, then I I think that's that's something that we need to do.
Speaker 18
Thank you, madam chairman. I'll try to be very quick here. Lightning round on this panel. You know, on the black bear question, we haven't talked a whole lot about bears. I think there's a direct correlation between the end of allowing us to hunt bears with dogs and the increase in the amount of conflict between bears and and human and humans.
There has been legislation. And when we talk about hazing, that's been a thing that's brought up a lot. One of the best ways to haze is through the use of dogs. Because Hadwick had a bill last year. You know, would you guys be supportive of such a policy to haze and help avoid those human conflict?
Speaker 4
I mean, what I would say there, assembly member, is that is an area of that would be a statutory change, and so we're going to defer to the policymakers on on that.
Speaker 18
Yeah. But you guys are the experts, and I want you know, I think it helps inform it. I mean, would that help avoid these conflicts, you know, from the folks who deal with this every day?
Speaker 5
I I will say that under the current laws that are in place, the folks from wildlife services in the counties that implement depredation requests are allowed to haze with dogs if they want to already. That is a specific set of code that's different. If are you asking about Only law enforcement, though. Right?
Speaker 5
It's it's allowed by those implementing depredation. So not the general public or hunters. Correct. Yes.
Speaker 18
Okay. And then I'll move you know, so sounds like it does help, and you you and you do utilize it in that context.
Speaker 18
Alright. So I think that's helpful. On with regard to wolves, I think there has been a lot of progress made. There's been a lot of good means, good discussion. But I think one problem is look.
These wolves are getting closer and closer to humans. There is a very big concern that we are going to see devastation, you know, to our communities. We already are seeing it with our cattle. And I think of of what we need is a public safety, you know, ability for our sheriffs to use a public safety kill in these circumstances, would you guys be supportive of such a change?
Speaker 4
but because I I I know you'll hear from sheriff Fisher and the county sheriffs have been really focused and vocal on this as they should be given their their concern of their community. As former director Bonham, you know, explained always very directly, a local law enforcement official, if they are concerned about the imminent public safety risk, the the the danger to somebody being attacked by a wolf, they can take that that wolf. So the public safety that actually protecting a person from a wolf is not only the responsibility of a wildlife officer, a local law enforcement official can do that too if it's an eminent pay public safety risk. I think you're talking to, and at least the sheriffs are discussing, what constitutes public safety. But as it is under code, chief, correct me if I'm wrong, we wanna be very clear on that.
Speaker 10
Yes. As it as it's under code, it's imminent threat. So and within policy. So to expand public safety, Mike talked about that a little bit today, and that may be where you're headed with your question. But as of right now, a sheriff that if they take a lion or a bear, they which has occurred here in California, they have that that ability to do that under their constitutional authority.
Speaker 18
That's gonna be a case of too late, man. You know? And what I'm trying to say is we're going to have a kid or a person killed if we don't have greater tools from a public safety standpoint to keep these wolves from coming into communities. And so I do think that we need to have that better tool that gives more clarity to law enforcement to be able to utilize, you know, that tool. And then I will agree with semiwoman Hadwick.
I think we also on there's too many of these unconfirmed kills out there that I think everybody really knows, and this is a frustration. They're wolves, you know, but we need to have you know, and it sounds like you guys are agreeable to having local law enforcement be part of that process to determine, you know, whether or not these were wolf kills. And I I think that would be a very good change that could help help this process. But we do need real tools to keep essentially, that wolves and bears learn that they can't, you know, come into these communities, that they can't kill cattle, like and they're not gonna learn that, you know, unless we have these tools available.
Speaker 3
Okay. So I've got a a general comment that I'd like to make. But before I do that, I gotta talk a little bit about mountain lions given that they are, often appearing now in suburban communities like myself while we're all asking about our own districts. So I I understand we have a three strike program in place. Do I have that right, number one?
Speaker 5
There's a under the depredation rules, there's a three strike for the ESU proposed candidate species right now, and then everything else is under our normal depredation rules. So I believe your district's within the proposed ESU, so I think it would be in the three strikes category, but I would have to look at them.
Speaker 3
That's okay. That's okay. I wanna ask you about the three strike program, whether it's in my district or not. Let let me simplify it for you. And is it that how often is a third strike reached, and is it resulting in in a reduction of conflict?
Speaker 4
And Kevin, can you explain the difference of the general application of mountain lion and what an ESU is and how it applies?
Speaker 5
Sorry. It's a significant unit of the animals that live in a portion of California that are at threat greater than the rest of the state. So Southern California where we have connectivity, loss of habitat, lions are are not doing as well as they are in other parts of the state. And so there's specific rules under depredation for that. The three strike rule simply says that we will use nonlethal deterrence multiple times before we will authorize taking of an animal as lethal.
To my knowledge, the nonlethal has been used multiple times, and I'd I we've only taken a few animals under the lethal in the last couple of years since it was implemented. There has been a greater understanding on the landscape of mountain lions in that area where people are working with us more on those nonlethal deterrents prior to having incidents. So that's been a good thing. But overall, most of the permits down there fall in the nonlethal category.
Speaker 3
So you say there's been some of a reduction then? Is it have you had success in the nonlethal?
Speaker 5
I believe that we've had success in implementing the nonlethal measures. Yes.
Speaker 3
Okay. And as a reduction in the conflict? That was the question. Yeah. I was a lawyer in a past life.
Speaker 5
I don't have exact numbers to say if it's reduced conflict. Maybe maybe Nate does. I don't I'm not sure off the top of my head. I can only say that the measures have been implemented, and we don't have lethal permit requests after that. So that would indicate to me that it is working.
Speaker 3
I got you. By deduction. Okay. So I just wanna first of all, thank all of you for being here. Secretary Crawford, don't be a stranger.
It's been nice to have you. And it is apparent that you must do more with less. If we take nothing away from this panel, we understand that. And I do think you're right on institutionalizing perhaps the shared resources, because this is not going to happen otherwise, and that whether it's a wolf or whether it's a mountain lion. So I I can appreciate that that desire to institutionalize that collaboration.
And I also want to say, to miss Termini, you're you're on to something with the technology part of it. And that may cost upfront money, not necessarily resources. I appreciate some of our Gonzales' attempt to say, how many more personnel can we get for x, y, or z? But I think you're on to something with the technology part of it, and I would welcome the opportunity to work further with costing that out. And, you know, it may particularly when you're out in the hithers with the wolves.
So let's let's continue that discussion. Thank you all for your time and for being here. And, Gallagher, thanks for those hard questions. And and, we're gonna go to the next panel. Thank you so much.
Well, welcome. After that brief commercial break, I want to thank Doctor. Orec and Doctor. Najera for being here. And I will let you take it away.
And let us know what you need technology wise to make sure that we get your presentations out there. Welcome.
Speaker 19
Great. Thank you very much. Thank you, madam chair and assembly members. My name is Caggy Orec. I'm the director of UC Berkeley's California Wolf Project, but I've also been a conservation practitioner for over fifteen years on human predator conflict and coexistence.
This was covered briefly, but conflict is growing due to land use changes, human expansion, as well as the Endangered Species Act and other recovery species recovery using conservation law and then climate driven shifts. Research on human wildlife conflict has shown that actual losses explain only part of the conflict and that strong predictors of human tolerance as well as human action towards wildlife are gonna include perceived fairness, trust in the institutions that are managing those wildlife, a sense of control or agency, and then also how do wildlife impact cultural identity and livelihood dependence. What I think is important as well is that two communities can experience identical losses and respond very differently. So when we're thinking about policy, when we're thinking about management, it needs to be flexible to reflect the the differences in those communities. Improving tolerance and addressing human wildlife conflict is not only ethically important, but it's also gonna be one of the most effective ways that we can reduce poaching and support recovering wildlife populations.
The loss of private property in rural areas can lead to development, subdivisions, and that decreases wildlife habitat. That is especially true in California. And the best interest of wildlife management agencies and those who wanna support carnivore recovery to try and reduce human wildlife conflict, where you're gonna have to be thinking about incentive based programs on private lands. Across species, across regions, evidence for successful human wildlife programs are codesigned. They're coproduced solutions, and they always outperform top down ones.
So responsible agencies need to be able to act early rather than react to chronic conflict. There needs to be focus on improving that trust, communication, and clarity in along with technical tools. There needs to be able to reduce uncertainty for affected communications. We've heard about this already. Communication is key.
And above all, it's gonna have to be adaptive, tailored to local, ecological, and social conditions to be able to react in the ways that the communities need. The bottom line too and what we've already heard in the previous panel is that no single tool is gonna work everywhere, that we really need to have systems that are sustainable as opposed to stand alone interventions. I know that this is gonna be asked. I know we're gonna be talking about this. So I just briefly wanna state the role of lethal removal in wolf management.
Lethal removal is an active tool in wolf management in other US states and Canadian provinces where wolves occur, and other states can provide models for better flexibility. So in Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon, after a certain number of verified livestock depredations over a specific period of time, lethal removal can be considered. But in Western Washington and Western Ogle Oregon, it's only possible to lethally remove a wolf when it poses an immediate threat to human life. So giving context to other places that have incorporated this in different areas. So the California UC Berkeley's California Wolf Project has been contracted by the CDFW over the last year and a half and has codeveloped seven objectives to provide foundational understanding to the recovery of wolves in California.
The conclusions I'm presenting are kind of a high level summary of various data that we've collected using different methods. I wanna highlight things that I'm not gonna be talking about today, but we have one of the largest camera trap arrays in Northern California in partnership with UC Davis to look at prey species and other predator species that are going to be important. And we've also conducted a number of interviews and interacted with a number of different stakeholders. I wanna talk about three key results that will be useful for this conversation about human wildlife conflict. The first is that wolves have widespread suitable habitat across California, and that is going to enable population growth and expansion.
So we're gonna see increases in human wildlife conflict moving forward. We've developed a habitat suitability model, and incorporating that with wolf biology, we've been able to predict and project where new packs are going to settle across the next twenty years. And so each of these polygons here represent a potential home range where wolves could establish, and the color of that polygon indicates a potential pack ranging from dark blue all the way, which is where wolves are currently established, to yellow, which is a predicted twenty years out. I think I just wanna highlight to you all here that we need to be thinking about policies and sustainable funding that is more comprehensive and supportive for a program around wolves because even districts that don't necessarily have wolves now could have wolves in the near future. The second result that I wanna share with you is that depredation risk is high in California.
Compared to depredations per wolf in 2023 across other states. For those in the back who can't see, California is at the top. Oregon, Wyoming, Washington, Idaho, and Montana follow, but that depredation risk is significantly higher in our state compared to others that have wolves. And what we have found is that that depredation risk increases as deer densities decline. That pattern is most consistent with prey limited human dominated systems such as Europe, and that speaks to our need to be thinking about native prey availability.
So not only thinking about improving habitat for elk and for deer and other prey that wolves are eating, but we also need to be thinking about domestic prey vulnerability. Wolves are constantly, weighing this negative stimuli again like hazing against their reward for food. So we need to be figuring out ways that we can create more negative stimuli around cattle, around livestock that push them towards that native prey. The third result that I wanna share is that trust needs to be improved, and that's both around nonlethal tools as well as across institutions. So we sent a questionnaire to those who received the pilot compensation funding, and we asked about the effectiveness of nonlethal tools.
And what you can see here is that all tools have supporters and detractors, and that speaks to the value of a flexible program. So wildlife or livestock producers are able to implement the tools that they think are going to be most effective. I think this also speaks to the need to have more workshops and programs and support of how to use these tools and implement them specifically on their operations and capture the nuances that might be available. We understand that wolves could have been new in some of these areas, so the familiarity and knowledge about some of these tools can range. And that's why I think it's really important to address education within all of that.
The second question, we've talked a lot about trust already on this panel. We've talked about how trust can improve human wildlife conflict. One of the questions that we asked was, to what degree do you trust information about wolves as well as wolf management from the following sources? Again, for those in the back, I know that it's difficult to see. It ranges cattlemen, CDFW, county officials, neighbors, nonprofit organizations, NRCS, Cooperative Extension, University Researchers, and USDA.
And what we can see is that there is higher trust in neighbors, cooperative extension, universities, and counties opposed to CDFW and other institutions, but that just highlights that there's all things that we need to improve in order to reduce human wildlife conflict, especially as we are seeing wolves increase across the state. We are going to have to work on improving this. This also speaks to sustainable funding and training for management to to address this. So, ultimately, what this means for California, thinking about solutions and suggestions, there needs to be co developed bottom up programs that work alongside livestock producers to reduce conflict. There needs to be more coordinated action across multiple scales and science based management that's paired meaningfully.
In the immediate, the things that I think that we can hit on, thinking about bridge building with landowners and local communities, I know that's moving in that direction now. Stable funding for applied and adaptive management as well as the science. There needs to be an expanded nonlethal conflict prevention program, essentially. And there needs to be stronger federal and state coordination. In the long term, we also need to be thinking about land use planning, specifically around habitat management, not only for large carnivores but their prey base, and that is also in conjunction with forest management and fire recovery.
Finally, I just wanna end with a quote that's from the IUCN, human wildlife conflict and coexistence specialist group. Says there can be pressure for quick fixes to human wildlife conflict, but actions that do not consider the wider social and local context lead to unintended consequences and increased tensions. And with that, I thank you.
Speaker 3
Or Doctor. Nahera. Proceed. I'm sorry. I'm just waiting.
Are we waiting technologically speaking? Okay. While we're doing that, I got a quick question for you. Yes. Doctor.
Orrick, can you explain for me just what you mean by the multi jurisdictional land planning around habitat management for large carnivores and their prey?
Speaker 3
Is that moving deer into the location of the wolves? That's what I'm getting at Yeah. Just so you know.
Speaker 19
No. I wasn't necessarily hitting on moving deer into these areas, but improving habitat restoration, removing of cheatgrass, incorporating and understanding fire regimes, and how that is impacting prey base, how that is impacting deer and elk, finding more ways to improve habitat in those areas.
Speaker 19
Yeah. Often, I hear that wolves should be moved down to those areas instead. But Alright.
Speaker 3
Well, that's where I was headed. Okay. Are you ready, doctor Nahir? Yeah. Good.
Welcome.
Speaker 8
Thank you. Thank you, chair and members of the assembly for letting me speak today about human conflict. So I prepared quite ambitious outline. Let me check. Here we are.
So I'll talk a little bit of on an overview of a human conflict worldwide, Then I'll talk about the role that UC Davis Wale Health Center California Economics program is taking on human philic conflict. I'll talk about current operations, our study sites, and methodologies, and then I'll end with some examples. So what is human philic conflict and why it matters? Because human philic conflict is one of the most urgent conservation challenges for wildcats worldwide. And human conflict happens when, Felix threaten, human livelihoods and safety amongst common through lifestyle deprivation, retaliatory killing, or less frequently, things have attacks on people.
It's driven by increasing overlap between humans and phyllis due to habitat loss and fermentation, expansion of livestock grazing operations, and prey depletion. And this is concerning when we're talking with about endangered species because retaliatory killing can drive population declines. So which fellas are most affected? So we know that the complex severity increases strongly with felid body size, with felid body mass. And in the literature, there's nine species that are overrepresented because the experience moderate to severe severe conflict worldwide.
This here over there, caracals, African lions, cheetahs, leopards, jaguars, Eurasian lynx, you know, leopards, tigers, and mountain lions. But why larger cats face more conflict? First, because they are perceived of higher risk for human safety, but as well because they can take on more valuable economically valuable cattle or other type of livestock. And, also, larger cats are gonna be roaming larger territory, so there is more opportunities for them to overlap with human settlements of livestock operations. So why drives conflict?
So livestock depredations is the dominant trigger. And then retaliatory killing is a major conservation threat because often exceeds natural mortality. And the conflict hotspots emerge where we have those felids habitats just on the border light with human settlement and actually with, grazing lands, when wild prey is reduced or is unavailable seasonally, and when livestock husbandry and guarding techniques are poor. And why managing human philic conflict is so challenging? Because this this is not static.
This is a conflict that is dynamic, is context specific. There's many variables in this theme. So we need to take care of what kind of wildlife species is involved, the type of livestock is involved, the scenario, the site, all is gonna inform this conflict. And data worldwide is inconsistent and comparable and sometimes missing. So from this literature review, we see that only 31% of mitigation strategies have been scientifically evaluated, really low.
And we say that there is not one solution for all carnivorous species. We need to adapt depending on the species we are working with. So that's why UC Davis' depression research is heavily involved in this theme because we know that the predation prevention is paramount for Pacific coexistence with mountain lions and to ensure mountain lion survival long term. We know that in California, primary threats are the loss of connectivity that is leading to genetic inbreeding, but higher on the list is the predation permits and poaching that is bringing low animal survival for males statewide and for both sexes in the southernmost part of the distribution. And some threats are still not well known, like rodenticides, the impact of fires, some diseases.
So these stats are from a UC Davis lead research and from collar mountain lions over a twelve year period of time. And you guys see that in Southern California, the predation permits and animals illegally kill is almost the same amount of animals that die due to vehicle collisions, which is the primary threat in Southern California. So I know that this is not right to do this day, but there is some three demographic groups that they are usually involved in this kind of depredation events. The first, I know all we know of this, is just the dispersal individuals, these young mountain lions that recently left the natal range and left mom. Mom is spoiling them for too many months, twenty, twenty four months, and it's hard to take on wild prey.
So if they encounter this livestock, it's easy for them to go for it. Second group will be females with dependent kittens. They live in a stage of a caloric demand. So it's easier for them to take in livestock if they have the opportunity. And also injure individuals.
So these photos are from one animal that we capture because he was depredating on goats. And when we were doing the physical exam, we saw that the animal was suffering from an injury in one of the digital vats. The animal was unable to move accordingly to his age. So these are the areas where our program is operating thanks to the scientific collecting permit issued by California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and we are really invested in areas of Central California and Southern California while tackling human failure conflict. Our areas of interest are livestock depredictions.
So we investigate any kind of depredation that may happen with sheep goats and other type of livestock like alpacas or llamas and ants of ducks and cats along with our regional biology stuff, CDRW. And, also, we are paying attention to human interaction, so how mountain lions behave in areas with a huge overlap with hikers, bikers, runners, you name that this is happening mostly in Southern California. So our depredation provision research started in 2021, and we are using several conflict mitigation techniques, and we are educating the public through typical preventive husbandry. But we are using these deterrent devices, these electronic devices that they turn on when they detect motion, and they display annoying sounds and lights. So this is how we work at what we call artificial bait sites.
So first, we need a collar mounted lion. When we know how the animal moves is when we set a bait over here and then the deterrence device. And let's see if I can play a video. Hardly would work. So that will be an example of how this works.
We're using as well other other tools. This is something that we're trying at the moment. It's just this camera that can have an interface with our cell phone. So when we detect the offender, we can actually put in place one kind of a stimuli to deter the animal from the side. And we try this in this setup when we were trying to capture I don't know if we can play this video.
When we're trying to capture a female, her boyfriend came first. And we're trying to deter this guy on getting into the trap. We didn't need him in the trap. So we're starting to talk over the phone and through the camera. Let's see how the animal responds.
Let's see. The beginning, the stimuli that we're using is pretty mild, and the animal is still interested in the cage trap. So what we do is just trying to increase the level of annoying stimuli to deter the guy. Then at the end, just clapping was enough for this guy to leave the site. So we're using this tool as well with opportunistically with other species.
So this is a family of black bears that they are taking on one of our mountain lion baits. I don't know if there is a video as well in here. Four individuals involved in this case. So at this time, we watch the animals feeding. Now we're connecting the camera.
It's gonna take a little while. Thanks for your patience. And now we start to talk.
Speaker 8
was effective. It was effective. But we're trying to do that opportunistically every time we we have the chance. So so some preliminary results about these deterrent devices. So even this time period, 2021, 2023, in Southern California, we use these devices.
In Alorian combination, we have a success of sixty four percent of the cases, sixteen over twenty five. We see other ones that they are not too successful, the ones that are based just on lights. So those ones, we are not gonna be recommending. And the next phase that we are working is including AI. So because one of the main disadvantages of using these deterrent devices is because they got get set off just with other species or just with wind.
So we want some deterrent devices specific for the animal that we want to deter, for the species that we want to deter. So this is the the moment that we are gonna be using these new devices. And at this time, we are trying, this prototype, thanks to our collaboration with the Pajarito Environmental Education Center in New Mexico. And this is the how we set up everything. We you guys see the the bait.
We see the battery. You guys see a camera. And, luckily, we have a an opportunity to test this device not too long ago. We are gonna see the algorithm is picking up this mountain lion, and and we have some some videos as well with that. We don't have too much time for this, but let's let's go through it.
And just last thing that I wanna say is we want to be lab numbers when we are working in real life scenarios. So for us, it's really, really valuable to color conflict mountain lions because then we can actually study the behavior of these individuals in a real time. And this is what happens with what animal that was injured. We colored the animal, and you guys see the cluster of points over here. Yes.
The animal was doing the daybed just next to the goat pen. So we were speaking with the livestock owner in a daily basis for almost nine days, say, hey. The mountain lion is still there. Please keep secure your goats because he's visiting the goat pen every night. So the livestock owner was wonderful, was collaborating with us.
And then after nine days, the animal start moving. And when we see a second cluster, we study that cluster in August, another goat pen. So we went there and we're starting to be proactive. So we put some deterrent devices. This is another video that we can play it really fast.
We see that it seems like for a couple of days it worked, but let's see the third day what is going what is going on. This is not the response that we want. The animal is habituated, and this is happening. Right? So at that time, we need to have a plan b.
And the plan b is just a study. How is the goat pen? It's not secure at all. It's an invitation for mountain lions to take goats. So we need to secure that pen and that what we did.
Usually, you cover visually that goat pen, it will will be were more successful. But just with that, the animal stay couple of nights around, unable to take any goats, and the animal is starting to move. So just to finish the presentation, it's just we need to be proactive. If we live in mountain lion country, please be proactive. Don't wait until a mountain lion takes a goat or ship out of you.
We need to put in place husbandry practices, basic husbandry practices. And finally, we need some tools. We have some tools that we can provide, these deterrence devices that can be helpful. That's what I have. Thank you.
Speaker 3
Thank you so much. Pictures worth a thousand words and then some. Okay. Questions from the committee. Assembly member Gonzalez.
Speaker 17
Thank you. This was, very inform you know, as I'm watching this, obviously, there's success, right, with the different type of pro proactive measures. And because you were on-site at these goat pens, you were able to assist, the owners of that land, to be able to do that. The assessment would be that you're not tracking every single, you know, predator that's out there. Right?
Correct. What type of communication do you have? Because if the ones that you are tracking, what type of communication do you have with the ranchers that are in the region if you do spot that they are in an area Outside of, you know, your your direct interaction with this area, if something pops up in an, you know, another area, what type of interaction do you have with them? Do you have their phone number? Hey.
We're tracking this, or is it just are you just specific to one area? And that's it.
Speaker 8
Yeah. For us, it's easier to operate in all our study sites. So we have more communications with ranchers and livestock owners in the in those sites. Usually, we're working in those areas for a very long time, so they know of our research operations. So it's easy for them to go through CDFW and feed CDW and ask we have a good collaboration on on this matter.
So it's it's just how we operate. So, usually, when we have opportunity to to talk over the phone or even to to visit the the livestock operation, we will. We will because we want to to build that trust with with Elasto governor. We want to help. We want conserve mountain lions, but we need to take care of of these other people that they are sharing the landscape with them.
Speaker 17
And with respect to CDFW and our law enforcement partners associated with them, what's your level of interaction when you hear of these, sightings on your end or on their end? Is it rare? Is it moderate? Is it continuous and always? What what is that, on on your end?
Speaker 8
Well, I I feel that it's seasonal. I feel that it's seasonal. There is some times of the year that we have more communication about about that. And, yeah, and, usually, the last for example, in Central California, the Tehachapi Mountains, has been thanks to the regional biologists from from CDFW that communicate with us and give us the opportunity to interact with the livestock owner because they know that we are really invested on getting conflict mountain lion scholar. Thank you.
Thank you.
Speaker 15
Yeah. Can you just succinctly kind of tell us what the state of the science is in regards to the prevention techniques that you were talking about versus, you know, no intervention or lethal intervention. It it from your initial slides when you talked about the problem worldwide, you said there was a real dearth of data. Is that the case in California? Is that a challenge for us?
Tell us about how those what what would you want us to take away from this presentation today?
Speaker 8
Thank you. Well, in regard to to mountain lions, can you repeat the question? Yes.
Speaker 15
Yeah. What I'm looking for is, do these techniques work? And, you know, what what do we need to take from that? Your presentation about the the habituation of the animals from the different techniques, the lack of,
Speaker 15
the data that you said was only 30% useful. You know, I'm I'm getting the impression that there's not a lot of clarity from your presentation.
Speaker 8
Well, so we have only just a couple of years of testing those devices, and there is a lot of variability because there is a lot of variability in mountain lion behavior. Mhmm. So one of the things that is most helpful is just to put in place basic husbandry practices. Yeah. You're securing securing your animals just at night when mountain lions are more active.
Mhmm. It will take a lot of this conflict out. That will be amazing. Then we have other techniques, and that's when this kind of devices may help. Mhmm.
But I think what we the starting point will be just to do an education program with people that already live in Montaleo country, and maybe they didn't have a depredation event yet. Mhmm. So that you don't have a depredation event. It doesn't mean that you won't have it once Right. Later on.
So if you are proactive and you don't let that mountain lion to take one livestock out of you, it's it's gonna make a big difference in the future because then you are teaching that mountain lion how to behave around your livestock. And that's that's huge. That's huge. And then we can assist assist with other other techniques.
Speaker 19
I will just add. There are a number of techniques that nonlethal techniques that work across multiple states. In California, there's a number of pilot and larger programs that are going on. But it really depends on the operation. Something that works in Sierra Valleys, and I'm thinking about specifically for wolves, is not gonna work in a more mountainous area of Siskiyou.
So getting that fine scale information and understanding the operation is what's important.
Speaker 15
So the context, the site specificity, the techniques for the situation, and being proactive, and doing basic husbandry are the recommendations. Okay.
Speaker 2
Thank you. Thank you so much. My questions are for you, Kagi. Can you tell us how other states manage wolves and livestock depredation?
Speaker 19
So many other states that have wolves, as I kind of said before, do have lethal removal as an option in some areas. There's also a number of non lethal programs that exist. And that is both through the state, but also through NGOs and other organizations that are supporting that. California has that slightly smaller than what other states have. I also think that California is unique in that there as we talked about, there are many more people in even in a small area of California compared to Montana, compared to Wyoming.
And so that conflict comes up much much sooner, and less nonlethals have been implemented.
Speaker 2
And I really appreciate that you say we should be flexible between communities and areas. I think my district, with 11 counties, is the perfect example of why blanket programs and mandates don't work. Do you think does the data sharing and the sheriffs accompanying the investigations, is that something that you see as an effective solution in like you were talking about with that coexistence and what our what our future should look like?
Speaker 19
I would love to talk about that a little bit more. I think that there are nuances, and it depends. Mhmm. There are there is some evidence from other states that having a ton more people at a livestock depredation event certainly impacts how people are feeling and how they deter determine if it's a predation event or not. I also think that it's good
Speaker 19
have accountability there. I also think that the county so CDFW does do a number of depredation investigations, but there are county county officials, county trappers that do depredation investigations Yeah. That are incredible in Northern California, and they're doing a great job. So I I know that there is there is a lack of trust with CDFW at times, but I do think that there are a number of other options, and there should be more funding to support those other options like county drivers.
Speaker 2
And our people, I have to say, are in the North State collaborate better than I I didn't know that that was not a normal thing until coming to this position, but we do it of out of survival. And it would be an addition of one person probably to the scene, not I mean, some of our departments have eight deputies. So it's not we don't have anybody that has a ton of extra officers to send. So thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and your presentations.
Speaker 3
Okay. With that, well, you so much for your time and your I had questions, but you answered them, except for the dear one. You came up short. That's all right, Doctor. Orrick.
I'll get you another time. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3
Okay. With that, we'll have our next panel come up. And I know we've got quite a few people here. We will get to public comment. Well, welcome.
I'm gonna have each of you introduce yourselves as you go along, but I do have, that we will, more than likely start with mister Wilbur and then go to miss Flick, mister Fisher, miss Bozell, and miss Pratt. Take it away, mister Wilbur.
Speaker 16
Excellent. Good morning, chair Pavin and members, and thank you to you and to the excellent staff for putting together this hearing today and for inviting us to participate. My name is Kirk Wilbur. I am the vice president of government affairs at the California Cattlemen's Association. For the past thirteen years, I've been working at CCA to help ranchers avoid and, when necessary, manage conflicts between their livestock and wildlife.
In 2014, I was fortunate to be selected to be on the department's wolf stakeholder working group to advise the department in their development of the wolf conservation plan for wolves in California. Over the past dozen years, I've advocated before the department, the commission, and the legislature on matters relative to human wildlife conflicts, particularly about coyotes, wolves, and mountain lions. There we go. Ranchers steward 38,000,000 acres of rangelands throughout the state of California, so they do actually provide habitat and steward habitat for innumerable wildlife species. Relevant to today's hearing, I wanna focus on predation conflicts with livestock and predator species.
I've listed a few up there of animals that frequently come into conflict with livestock. Wanna focus today primarily on mountain lions and wolves because their status as a specially protected species and an endangered species respectively create unique management difficulties and considerations in California. So I wanna start by discussing mountain lions. In recent years, ranchers that are members of my association have complained of increasing mountain lion conflict. These images here are taken just seconds apart in Santa Clara County, show a mountain lion chasing after a cow and her calf, and I was told by this producer that it was a near nightly occurrence at the time this photo was taken.
Chair Pappin, you had a a conversation with CDFW about the three step permit process. I just briefly wanna go over it here. The first permit in the Southern California and Central Coast ESU typically is just a nonlethal permit that authorizes pursuit and hazing. There's usually a second nonlethal permit issued, and then only after a third permit may you possibly get a lethal take permit that has to go through the headquarters in Sacramento for authorization. My understanding is there's a two step process elsewhere in the state, and typically, it's the regional manager that has ultimate decision over whether or not to issue a lethal take permit on that second strike.
So I want to sorry. I wanna briefly talk about proposition one seventeen, which was passed by the voters in 1990. That is a permit sorry. That is a proposition that allows specifically for the department to issue take permits when mountain lions depredate against livestock. I failed to mention that previously.
There are two concerns with the permit process that I laid out that I want to focus on today. The first is that there's a lack of timely responsiveness by the department. Proposition one seventeen requires that the department, upon notification from a producer, within forty eight hours investigate a suspected depredation and issue a determination and possibly a permit. I am hearing from producers throughout the state, as an example, there's an email here, that often there is a multiday delay in the department's response when they contact those regional managers. Sometimes it's complete nonresponsiveness.
I think one way that we can help address this problem is something that the department mentioned earlier today, which is just better resourcing for the human wildlife coexistence programs within the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Additionally, I think it would be beneficial to get some better guidance from CDFW as to how to elevate those permits when the regional office doesn't take action. The more substantial concern I want to address today is that CDFW's permit process almost completely frustrates proposition set one seventeen's intent to authorize management of mountain lions that harm livestock. For instance, permits authorizing only pursuit and hazing in the Central Coast and Southern California fail to comply with the department's legal obligations under proposition one seventeen to authorize take because hazing is not a take under California law, and pursuit is not a take within the meaning of proposition one seventeen. Additionally, the department's requirement that a single ranch must suffer multiple depredations from an individual identifiable mountain lion within a relatively short period of time often practically frustrates ranchers' ability to actually manage that animal.
Proposition one seventeen was explicitly sold to voters as a provision that would allow ranchers to protect their livestock from mountain lions. And by delaying permit issuance and giving ranchers the runaround in permit issuance, all too often, that doesn't actually happen, frustrating the voters' intent with proposition one seventeen. I wanna move quickly on to wolf livestock conflicts. The most tangible example of conflicts between wolves and livestock, as you've heard today, is direct depredation. I have made an intentional decision today not to show you particularly graphic images.
We've got some ranchers in the room. My members would very much like you to see the devastation they see of their calves and their cows when they go check animals in the morning and see there has been a wolf depredation. I don't wanna do that to you. So I've got a few mild examples up here on the screen. You can see a cow that has had its hind legs chewed on by wolves, a cow that's been killed and had some of its soft tissue consumed by wolves, and a calf that has been killed by wolves.
Wanna speak well, I should say that, the incidence of depredation has increased roughly proportional with the population of wolves in the state of California, and we've seen a precipitous increase in rates of direct depredation over just the past four years. I've highlighted here something from the conservation plan for gray wolves in California. We all recognize within this space that those numbers vastly undercount actual losses of livestock to wolves for a variety of reasons. I'm gonna skip that in the interest of time. I do want to speak briefly about the indirect impacts of wolf presence on cattle, which in truth is probably the most significant impact of wolves on livestock producers and the animals they steward.
Cattle harassed by wolves have lower weight gain and lower body scores because of the chasing and stress effects of having wolves present. Stress caused by wolves may cause negative immune responses in cows and calves, and often it causes a pregnant cow to abort her calf. Research from UC Davis suggests that direct and indirect impacts combined from an individual wolf can be anywhere from $69,000 to $162,000 for producers in the impacted community. I was told to be patient. There we go.
I'll spend some time discussing conflict avoidance because I know that's a priority for today's hearing. There are several tools that ranchers can deploy to deter wolf attacks on their herds, including range riders, guardian livestock dogs, and fladry. It's important to note that every deterrent has its limitations, and Caggy did a good job of discussing some of this. Many interventions are expensive. They may require scarce resources in this state, or they may only deter wolves for a limited period of time before new interventions are necessary.
Additionally, not all deterrents are suitable for all landscapes or all ranch sizes. And while some have suggested that ranchers are not doing enough to deter wolf attacks, it bears mentioning that some of the most effective deterrents, enhanced human presence, changes in animal husbandry practices, removal of attractants may not be particularly visible to outside observers. Madam chair, I wanna commend you on authoring a b four eleven last year. That will help ranchers reduce those predator attractants by newly authorizing on ranch carcass composting. This slide briefly highlights some sort of novel intervention efforts recently in the state of California, drones from USDA Wildlife Services, and, of course, there's been some discussion of the strike team that was deployed by CDFW this past summer in the Sierra Valley.
I wanna reiterate that no deterrents are perfectly effective at avoiding wolf livestock conflict. The state's experiment with the twenty four seven strike force in Sierra Valley underscores this fact as ranchers still suffered near nightly losses of livestock to wolves. I appreciate the perspectives of some today, including on this panel, that interventions have to occur much earlier than they did in Sierra Valley, though I would caution you that this burden cannot fall squarely and solely on ranchers. But even in circumstances of early intervention, there may well come times when deterrent efforts fail, and the state must be open to alternate management, including lethal removal of wolves like we saw in the Sierra Valley this year. I do wanna commend CDFW.
Assembly member Hart, you had a question about compensation funding. So here it is in sort of graphical representation that's from the department. I do wanna commend the department because under authorization from the legislature, they really did come up with the most comprehensive, robust compensation program in the West. You won't often hear cattlemen commending the department, so I wanna underscore that right now. Part of the problem we have is from the legislature.
It has just been underfunded. So for the last two years, for instance, there has been no assistance for funding for ranchers to proactively deploy nonlethal deterrents to haze away wolves. And in the instances where those nonlethal deterrents fail, there's been no compensation for their presence impacts of wolves. I also wanna address very briefly some of the intangible impacts of wolf presence on livestock. We saw in the Sierra Valley this summer, I've seen it in Siskiyou County, ranchers are suffering physical, psychological, and emotional harm from dealing with wolves day in, day out on their herds.
And this isn't just something that impacts ranchers that have lost cattle. This is really having a fear response and a grief response throughout entire communities in assembly member Hadwood's Hadwood's district in particular. So I wanna underscore that there's more than just the harm to the livestock. This is something that has a human element as well. I also briefly want to mention that in instances where ranchers may not go and graze cattle on certain pastures because of the presence of wolves, that has a natural resource impact on those areas and also has an economic impact on our rural communities.
So I briefly want to end with a nonexhaustive list of some of our policy improvement suggestions. You've heard a lot of this already today. First of war first of all, more wolves need to be fitted with GPS collars, and that data needs to be shared with ranchers in wolf territory. You've heard today about some of the improvements on that issue. We recognize that battery life and other factors impact the availability and the value of that GPS data.
For this reason, we think California ought to invest in technologies like telemetry equipment and certainly ought to invest in research and development of better tracking technology. Ranchers would also, as you heard today, like to see an appeals board for circumstances in which, for instance, they can only find some blood and a calf bone that gets determined as you know, unknown by the department when it's very likely it was a wolf, particularly if we can track the wolf to that area. We'd like to see an appeals board you heard some willingness from the department to have that. The department last year announced that we've entered phase two of wolf recovery and that it was considering permitting more aggressive nonlethal take to deter wolf attacks. We haven't seen that come to fruition yet, and ranchers are eager to get more assistance, more guidance from the department on how they can do more to less than lethally haze wolves from their herds.
Finally, the department's wolf livestock compensation program has to be better and more reliably funded. That gets me to my next and final slide. We are making strides with the department in just recent months on all of those asks. So I'm not suggesting that the legislature needs to come in and give us a really prescriptive solution in the policy arena. I am asking two things of you today.
One is continue this oversight with stakeholders and with the department. You're doing an excellent job of it today. I'd like to see more of it. But secondly, we need the legislature to adequately fund the Department of Fish and Wildlife's human wildlife coexistence program and as a subset of that, the wolf program. We have a budget request that some of you have seen.
We're asking for $31,000,000. That's a lot of money, but it's necessary if we want to fully protect wolves and reduce these conflicts. That money will go to better compensating ranchers specifically for implementing nonlethal deterrence. It will improve the research and outreach and education communication that CAGNY and others are doing, and it will allow us to better staff the wolf program at CDFW and ensure, for instance, that we get more collars on more wolves. So we are asking for $31,000,000 for that program.
That is the single biggest thing I think you all can do to improve improve wolf human coexistence in this state. With that, I'll stop talking, and change on to our next speaker, but I'm happy to take any questions you have when this panel concludes.
Speaker 15
Thank you for the additional numbers. They're very different than our previous numbers, a lot bigger. But I wanted to ask you directly about the depredation compensation and whether or not that should be tied to some minimum standard of intervention from ranchers, the husbandry techniques that the science panel spoke to. What do you think about that?
Speaker 16
Yeah. So it's a complicated question in part because, for instance, in areas where ranchers and their cattle are entirely naive to wolves Mhmm. We probably don't want those folks spending the limited resources and time and money on, you know, preemptively deploying wolf deterrents that could be taking resources from other places where they're needed. For instance, there isn't a whole lot of flagry in the state. In terms of animal husbandry practices and other nonlethal deterrent efforts, as I mentioned, a lot of that is stuff that's already being done by ranchers to better improve, you know, carcass removal, which is often an attractant for wolves, better, you know, kind of group their cattle into herds, etcetera.
But as Kagy mentioned, this is gonna be very ranch specific. Mhmm. You know, some of these ranches are on thousands of acres of National Forest Service land, where they're permitted to graze in the summer. They may not have fence lines. They may not be permitted to put fence lines up, and the, you know, territory, the terrain may present specific concerns.
So I think it is fair to say that ranchers should be doing something in the realm of nonlethal deterrence, and they are. But we have to be careful to make sure that our nonlethal solutions are not overly prescriptive. They cannot be one size fits all. They have to be tailored to the ranch, and they have to be deployed at a time that is economically feasible but also makes sense.
Speaker 20
Thank you. Good morning, committee members, staff, and invitees. I'm Pamela Flick. I'm the California program director for Defenders of Wildlife. In my 20 with Defenders, I've worked on many human wildlife conflict issues surrounding bears, condors, sea otters, desert tortoises, beavers, fishers, burrowing owls, and many more species.
It has been the highlight of my career, however, to be Defenders lead staff on wolf issues here in California ever since o r seven stepped pawn to our state in late two thousand eleven. I served on the Wolf Stakeholder Working Group to assist the development of our state's wolf conservation plan. I'm a proud founding member of the Pacific Wolf Coalition. Defenders advocated for the 2021 trailer bill language that set up the initial $3,000,000 program for the compensation pilot program, and I was on the department's working group to help determine that program's framework. I worked shoulder to shoulder with CCA and with farm sorry, Cattlemen's Association and Farm Bureau for funding to extend that compensation program and as well in support of AB four eleven.
Thank you, madam chair, for championing that that bill. If you're unfamiliar with Defenders of Wildlife, we're a national nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection of all native species and their natural communities. We pride ourselves on bringing sound science to policy making and seeking innovative solutions to conservation challenges. Our goal is to foster transformation in both human attitudes and how wildlife and people interact, moving from conflict to coexistence. We partner with state and federal wildlife agencies and have been staunch advocates for creating and funding the USDA Wildlife Services non lethal initiative to implement livestock protection projects in multiple states, including here in California.
We also work directly with livestock producers, posting workshops and demonstrations for rancher to rancher information exchange about tools and techniques that can minimize livestock losses by predators. We also employ range riders in various locations around the country. Defenders established the nation's first wolf livestock compensation program and paid out more than $1,400,000 over twenty three years before the federal government authorized funds to initiate state run compensation programs. This allowed us to focus on upstream solutions to minimize wolf life livestock conflicts before animals are harmed. We help advance coexistence by helping people share the landscape with wildlife and use innovative tools to reduce human wildlife conflicts.
Defenders has been at the forefront of these efforts for decades, pioneering transformational approaches that successfully limit negative human wildlife interactions and build social acceptance for wildlife across the country. And we do this through outreach engagement, reforming, and safeguarding policies and on the ground projects. Gray wolves here in California are native species, and they belong here. It's truly remarkable that these ecologically important animals have returned naturally to our state under their own wolf power. But gray wolves have returned to a very different landscape than that of the nineteen twenties when they were locally extirpated.
We have far more humans, less available native prey, and more fragmented habitats, all while facing increasingly severe impacts from a changing climate. But wolves are adaptive critters, and we can they can survive and even thrive in challenging conditions as long as humans are willing to share the landscape with them. California has had a major opportunity to do things differently when it comes to gray wolf recovery, but unfortunately, the situation in Sierra Valley last year changed that for the worse. After CDFW made the decision to lethally remove the three Bam Sayo pack adults and unfortunately mistakenly killed one of the juvenile males, there's been an increasing demand to kill even more wolves. In fact, at the recent CDFW Wolf Stakeholder Meeting, county representatives repeatedly stated that they want to be able kill wolves, and they want CDFW to act more quickly to kill wolves.
But California prides itself on science based wildlife conservation and management, and the peer reviewed bless you. Published peer reviewed science is clear. Killing wolves does not solve the conflicts and can, in fact, exacerbate them. Nature abhors a vacuum, and killing wolves does not address the root cause of the wolf livestock conflict. Other wolves will move in eventually, and the conflicts will continue.
I know I speak for many Californians when I say we never wanna see lethal removal of another wolf pack here again ever, but we also don't wanna see more livestock killed because of wolves. Thankfully, the use of non lethal conflict reduction tools and strategies is more effective and more cost efficient over the long haul, and there are tools and strategies that have been proven to reduce wolf livestock conflicts. These include human presence and range riding, increased monitoring of predators as well as livestock to watch for injured and ill individuals to doctor in the field or to remove from the range to reduce their vulnerability, attractants management, and there is a collective agreement by many that there needs to be a comprehensive carcass removal program. Barriers, including turbo flattery, night penning, and other specialized fencing. Guard animals, livestock guardian dogs, or the big white dogs, as they're referred to, donkeys and llamas.
Hazing and scare devices including drones, radio activated guard boxes, and fox lights. Husbandry and low stress livestock handling certainly has an important role to play as do ranch assessments because every operation is different. There's also potential for operational changes such as shifting calving and lambing season to coincide with higher native prey availability and supplemental feeding in the evening to naturally bunch livestock prior to nightfall to reduce vulnerability to predation. While I don't have time to discuss bear conflict reduction methods, the basics are generally the same. Make it challenging for bears or wolves to obtain food resources.
The harder it is for these wild animals to get calories from human derived sources, whether that be livestock or bird feeders, carcasses or garbage, the more likely they are to move along and seek natural foods. It's also important to note that not every tool or strategy works everywhere or in any given scenario. Some of the methods work in the short term or in smaller areas during periods of high vulnerability like calving and lambing season. It's also beneficial to utilize multiple conflict reduction measures simultaneously. I want to I want to emphasize that not implementing nonlethal measures never works once wolf livestock conflicts begin to occur.
It's imperative that proactive strategies be deployed early and often and at the landscape scale. If one ranch uses conflict deterrence and their neighbors don't, the whole effort can unravel. That's why California must support community wide adoption of proven practices. We must also ensure that when the state provides compensation funds, livestock producers are all doing their part through the proper and documented use of proactive measures. There's been a lot of concern about public safety.
Claims have been made that wolves simply observing people being out in the open near live stock, or moving through areas near schools or bus stops means that wolves are a danger to people. It's simply not true. In the last one hundred and twenty plus years, there have only been two documented instances of a wolf killing a human in North America, one in Alaska in 2010 and one in Canada in 2005. This is despite the fact that there is an estimated 55,000 to 78,000 wolves on our continent. This fact underscores the importance of education as one of the most critical components to successful coexistence.
Apart from actual conflicts, a huge part of the controversy surrounding carnivores is the amount of misinformation, misunderstanding, and outright falsehoods about their origin, biology, behavior, and ecology. For wolves in particular, they've been painted with so much misinformation for decades that coexistence efforts will not succeed without meaningfully investing in public education and outreach. Coexistence begins with fundamental facts and knowledge. The importance of education to advance coexistence is acknowledged time and again in state and federal wildlife management plans, but then staff time and resources don't get allocated by agencies that are already chronically understaffed and underfunded. To that end, Defenders is proud to be cosponsoring legislation to create and fund a comprehensive state human wildlife conflict program as CDFW that we've heard a lot about today.
This would provide 50 to six 50 to 60 permanent positions and resources for temporary staff to span the entire state. This includes urban, suburban, and rural areas and covers multiple species, including wolves, black bears, coyotes, cougars, beavers, and more. Speaking of beavers, one example, very quickly, of how dedicated state funding can make a difference for coexistence is CDFW's first ever beaver restoration program created in 2022 and codified in '24. This program has invested important state state resources in staff, equipment, and outreach to further coexistence through a comprehensive approach to beaver management and also includes a new state run and NGO funded excuse me, state funded and NGO run beaver help desk launched last fall, offering landowners and managers new easy to use resources like technical support, financial assistance, and training opportunities to help turn beaver problems into beaver solutions. Back to our soon to be introduced legislation, which will also contain funding to meaningfully resource wolf coexistence program, as Kirk outlined.
This will include funding for the compensation program, support for UC Berkeley's wolf project in the Cooperative Extension, helicopter collaring efforts, and additional department staffing for wolf management and rapid response. Our goal is to provide the department with the staff and tools they need to successfully foster wildlife coexistence statewide. Defenders is eager to help and looks forward to working together to find common ground and lasting solutions. Thank you for hosting this important and informative hearing and for the opportunity to speak with you today.
Speaker 21
Alright. Chair Pappin and members of the committee, thank you so much for having me here today. Many of you may be wondering why is a a sheriff down at the state capital and and testifying and speaking about wildlife conflict. That's a great question. And, you know, Us sheriffs in the Northern portion of California, I will speak, to dealing with them on a daily basis, and and this has become a huge topic amongst ourselves.
We heard earlier today with CDFW staffing, funding issues. So a lot of these things have fallen onto the local sheriff. CDFW, I've had a great working relationship with for twenty five years now in law enforcement. Sometime lately, little more strain than others, but I still consider them a very valuable partner along with the other partners that are in this room, my my county board of supervisors that are in this room today. So I wanna thank you for the opportunity today to testify about, human wildlife conflict.
And so my name, Mike Fisher. I'm the, elected sheriff of Sierra County, which is a small county in Northern California, couple hours away from here. My county consists of family, ranches, schools that all live alongside apex predators such as bears and mountain lions and most recently wolves. My testimony today is gonna focus primarily on the human health and safety as it relates to public safety and wildlife conflict. In rural California, wildlife conflict is not theoretical, and it is not just about livestock.
It involves repeated predator conflict near homes, near schools, predators losing fear of people, and communities living under constant disruption and chronic stress. From a public safety perceptive perspective, this is a key point. When conflict is repeated, predictable, and close to where people live and work, it becomes a human health and safety issue, even before someone is injured or killed. In wild or I'm sorry. In wildfire prevention, flood control, we act on foreseeable risk.
In public safety issues rather than only seeing it as a wildlife issue, we oftentimes do not act on that foreseeable risk. I wanna ground this in two examples today, wolves and bears. First, wolves. The conflict with the Bayossein pack in the Sierra Valley was not just about economics. It became a public safety issue because of the repetitive and proximity and the physiological toll it had on our community.
There were over 90 confirmed livestock attack and kills. In one case, a wolf killed an elk on the front porch of an occupied home. California Department of Fish and Wildlife deployed a strike team, consisted of a hundred and fourteen days, logged over eighteen thousand hours, and conducted 95 hazing events. That level of effort shows this was not routine wildlife activity. It was a sustained crisis.
Losses approached a quarter million dollars in the Sierra Valley with the total cost, including, California Department of Fish and Game strike force exceeding $2,000,000 in one summer. But greater impact was the human impact, chronic stress, sleep deprivation, anxiety for months, constant vigilance of our community, our ranchers, and even our CDFW partners that were there living this day in and day out with us as part of the strike force. Ranchers stated publicly that the emotional toll was far worse than what the financial toll was. The human health impact and what the human health and and when human health is degraded across communities, public safety is degraded as well. Fatigue, fear increases, and the likelihood of poor decisions and accidents increase.
After months of deploying nonlethal tools, lethal removal was finally authorized. That delay shows how communities remained in crisis as there was no clear definition of, quote, public safety or when public safety is reached. Now on to bears. In November 2023, a Downeyville resident, Patrice Miller, was found dead inside of her home and partially eaten by a bear. Autopsy results later confirmed she was mauled and eaten.
Despite this, this incident this incident was treated as a wildlife conflict rather than a public safety incident. I fully recognize that the beginning of this investigation, it was believed that she was consumed postmortem. And it was only after the investigation went on for several weeks that it was determined that the Patrice was was mauled and then eaten. But after her death, that same bear had repeatedly returned and broke into the home. Friends and neighbors watched the bear that killed Patrice lying and sleeping on her front porch.
There were delays in author authorizing its removal because CDFW's policy classified this in the beginning as a wildlife conflict, not a public safety issue. In July 2024, the next spring or early summer, a large black bear broke into the Loyalton High School ag barn twice where students had their animals and were caring for them daily in anticipation of going to a county fair. Despite repeated break ins to the school barn, the incident was classified as a wildlife conflict, and no depredation permit was issued despite the school superintendent requesting one. The sheriff's office ultimately intervened with the assistance of the USDA Wildlife Services, and the bear was removed under a public safety concern. The issue was not whether or not the bear was protected.
The issue was whether or not the bear break ins into a barn used by high school students represented a foreseeable risk. It did. When apex predators repeatedly cause conflict near ranches, homes, schools, the impacts go beyond wildlife management. They create chronic stress, disrupt routines, increase emotional strain, and reduce community safeties. We heard some testimony here, you know, about, you know, wolves attacking human beings.
I I think when we look at the public safety side of things, we have to look at a larger picture of that immediate risk of being attacked, and we have to look at the chronic stress. The our ranchers that are sleep deprived because they're range riding all day and then going to school and teaching our children. We have a a ranch that husband, wife would be out all night long, range riding, and she's a local school teacher during the day. So we need to look at the overall impact, not just the fact of somebody going to be attacked. I think I'm gonna stop right there, I'm gonna open it up to questions.
I I tend to go very, very long, and and I could spend the next two and a half to four hours discussing wolves, bears, and mountain lions. So with that, I appreciate today, and I would love to invite any of the members to come up to Sierra County. I give you a tour, let you lead meet our local ranchers, and have a real look of what is going on with, you know, wolf conflict in California. Thank you.
Speaker 7
Thank you for having me today. I'm gonna be speaking to you in regards to Los Angeles County and the wildlife conflicts that we are seeing there and how we are managing those. My name excuse me. My name is Kim Bozell. I'm the regional operations manager with Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation.
And just to put a little context for LA County, we are one of the smaller counties, not nearly as big as yours. In 2022, we did a park needs assessment plus, which is focused on, an update for the 2016 assessment that we did. Its purpose is to guide the county's 30 by 30 strategy for land conservation and restoration. As it pertains to wildlife and wildlife movement, the PNA plus maps core habitat areas, fragmented landscapes, and pressure points that we are seeing with wildlife and human conflict. What we find is that park needs often mirror wildlife corridor needs.
So on this map right here, you can see the small symbols are all of our large natural areas that are operated by the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Rec. The yellow lines are our county trails. We currently have two fifty miles of county trails. And then we have 200 or seven twenty proposed and adopted regional trails that we are working towards for connectivity of these habitats. This next map shows the environmental benefits in LA County.
The lightest areas are the lowest areas of benefit, and the darker areas are the highest areas of benefit. The blue areas in this part of the map, are the priority areas that we are focusing on environmental conservation. And then the darkest areas here are areas for environmental restoration that the county is working towards, and a lot of these are old oil fields and brownfields. So as we work towards those strategies, we are, as far as LA County goes, we do have a 185 parks, open spaces. We have 10 natural areas, 16 wild wildlife sanctuaries, 250 miles of trail, 20 golf courses, and four botanic gardens.
All of that is prime wildlife habitat. So we do see a large amount of these animals in our park system, and we have to find a way to balance our recreation and, wildlife conflict in these areas. It's one of the most biologically diverse counties in the nation with extensive extensive regional corridors. And we also serve tens of millions of people in Los Angeles County, so we're packed in there with all of this. The large predators do move through occasionally, in our public spaces, and sometimes they will stay for a while.
So our role as the LA County Parks team, all of our natural areas are also Los Angeles County Fish and Game Wardens. They've been that way for fifty plus years. We have 14 positions that are spread throughout the county. It's a dual role that combines resource protection, public safety, and educational enforcement. And all of these, these positions are embedded in our park operations.
Our core responsibilities are to respond to wildlife incidents in parks and open spaces. We assess animal behavior and and risk in real time. We enforce state and county wildlife regulations, and we coordinate with CDFW and lead community outreach and education efforts. The local decision making and field authority for our staff is basically that these are trained staff that make site specific determinations on the ground. We evaluate animal behavior, human activity levels, and environmental conditions, and allow that allow for rapid, appropriate responses without unnecessary escalation.
We also practice hazing, and that is to reestablish the national the natural wariness of people. This is conducted by trained staff only, focused on public settings, safety first approaches, consistency with state protocols. Our species of focus are black bears, mountain lions, and coyotes. Just recently, we had black a black bear that went into Descanso Gardens while it was open on a Sunday, and it was packed full of people. Decided to take a swim in the front fountain.
We did have to close the park and, try and wait for the bear to leave. We later went in and decided we can't close the park every time this bear decides to come back. So we trained the staff there in hazing techniques so they can section off a sec a part of the garden, remove people, and then kind of coax the bear out of the area. And that's how we work that. We also have mountain lions that come into our park.
We rarely see them in our parks, but we capture them all the time on our trail cameras and, also with tracks in some of our parks. We had one lion. We found lion tracks in Whittier And Narrows, which is down if you know LA, the 60 and the 10, which is not a wildlife area, but it had followed the river down. And we also recently had a mountain lion kill a horse in, one of our equestrian centers at Shibaran Park, which is over on the Eastern Side of LA County. We do have tons of coyotes, and that's one of our main focuses, on our education programs, because the coyotes, a lot of times are being fed unintentionally or intentionally by the public, so we have to address those concerns with our constituents.
Excuse me. Sorry. So, what we would like is to establish a true partnership between California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the LA County Parks using our park facilities with joint wildlife, for joint wildlife safety meetings and training for our staff, volunteers, and community. This partnership would leverage the parks' trusted neutral venues where CDFW and county partners can engage residents together and deliver consistent site bay science based messaging. Partners with our local we also wanna partner with our local organizations to expand reach and build trust with within diverse communities and share information.
A lot of the problems we're seeing is that we don't know problems are happening in our communities to share that with our CDFW knows that problem before we do, and we can leverage that to have community meetings and get the information out to our public. And then also vice versa, we know our communities very well. So when problems are happening, we can then go back and try and let coordinate with CDFW to make sure that we are issuing sorry. Yeah. I just wanna share
Speaker 7
I just wanna share quick really quickly one of these successful partnerships. So the San Dimas Raptor Rescue is a new rescue that opened in 2024. It's run and operated by LA County on in a LA County park. It was fulfilling a re regional need because it was established when multiple of our, raptor rescue facilities in the surrounding area closed down. We are now one of the only providers serving the East Side Of Los Angeles County.
The program was a vision that came from our director, Norma Garcia Gonzalez, and that was to address that gap we saw for public investment. That gap we saw through public investment, professional wildlife care, and long term conservation outcomes. The lasting benefits, wildlife is a virtual natural resource. Each raptor release strengthens biodiversity, supports ecosystem balance, and helps reduce wildlife conflict in urban and recreational areas. We have a number of key stakeholders, our LA County board supervisor, Catherine Barger, who provided us with the seed money to start this endeavor, and also California Department of Fish and Wildlife who walked us through the permitting process and kind of held our hand to get that done within six months, which is really great.
Our impact that first year in 2025, we received 363 raptors and released a 174. Our our release rate is seventy two percent when the raptor survives the first twenty four hours, and we've had over eighteen hundred hours of volunteers helping us. So really quickly, the LA County Parks is working on protocols to address Coyote, Bear, and Mount Lion issues. These are not yet, approved by the board of supervisors, so we always welcome input. But a quick high level summary of our proposed protocols is that wildlife conflict is managed and not reactive.
Prevention and education reduce risk and cost and cost. Human safety is a top priority. Nonlethal strategies are the the the default. Sorry. Clear escalation and accountability, and then decisions are data driven and illegally grounded, and lethal control is the last resort.
We put together a tiered response for these incidents, and the tiers range ever anywhere from one to five. So tier one would just be sightings, which don't require any kind of intervention to a verified attack, is tier five, which is where we would coordinate immediately with our public safety people and California Department of Fish and Wildlife. And then the ones in between focus highly on education and focus education in our public air in our community areas. LA County plays a large role in public education and conflict prevention. Our messaging includes, climate change and natural disasters.
Just currently, we had the Eaton and Palisades fire, and we were seeing animals seeking food, water, and shelter in areas they hadn't been previously. Understanding risk that wildlife presence near urban edges is not inherently dangerous. Conflict risk includes increases when animals are stressed, displaced, or drawn to food attractants. And then proactive conflict management, we provide education on not feeding wildlife, securing attractants, and guided hazing when necessary. And then lastly, I will say that education is our most effective tool.
Public education is the foundation of wildlife conflict prevention and long term coexistence. LA County's ongoing efforts include on-site signage, community meetings, coordination with partner agencies, reinforcing, shared responsibility between the public and land managers. Most wildlife conflicts are preventable. Education helps reduce habituation, food conditionings, and risky animal behavior. And prevention protects communities, park visitors, staff, and wildlife while supporting healthy ecosystems.
I wanna thank you for your time today.
Speaker 23
Thank you. I wanna thank the chairwoman, assembly members. Oh. Thank you. Wanna thank you, chairwoman, assembly members, and everybody here.
I think we can agree that Californians pride themselves on our national our natural wildlife heritage, and I am really appreciative of everybody depending on no matter what your perspective coming together to find solutions today. I wanted to open with a quote from today's San Francisco Chronicle about our mountain lion in San Francisco. It feels like it would be more scared of us, said Ben Lawson, who chased after his toddling 16 year old Will as the two headed home. He said he wasn't concerned about seeing the mountain lion. And I think this quote gets at two coexistence issues I want to tackle that many of us have spoken to today, the coupling of following the science and also that coexistence depends a lot on the social side of things.
I also like what today is stressing, especially that the San Francisco line of appearance, is that this is shared between rural and urban counties. This is not something unique to one area of California. I wanna introduce myself as Beth Pratt. I am the California regional executive director for the National Wildlife Federation. We represent 7,000,000 supporters nationwide.
We are one of the oldest and largest conservation groups, and we are bipartisan. We have everybody in our membership from bird watchers to hunters to ranchers, and we've been working on coexistence issues since 1936. I've been working, and I hate to admit how old I am, 57, for over three decades on conservation and environmental leadership. I've worked in places such as Yellowstone and Yosemite and LA, and I've lived in the Sierra Foothills in Mariposa County, similar to Sierra County in its size and ruralness, for over twenty seven years. I've also lived part time in LA for fourteen years.
And what I wanted to share today, as somebody who's been doing this in the field for years, is a couple stories and experiences of what's going on and what works. You've heard a lot and and a lot of good stats about the science and numbers. I'm just going to focus on a couple stories, but also my own personal experiences. This first video is a 100 feet from my home. I have lived in Mid Pines for twenty seven years on six acres.
I have multiple rescue animals, and I have everything, even coming up to my home, in terms of predators that should be in the Sierra, including mountain lions, bears, bobcats, coyotes, and I have never had one issue. Doesn't mean I won't. It's never zero risk with wildlife, but it's never zero risk with people either. And the reason is the practices I do to practice coexistence. It is possible to coexist.
Let this run through because there's a nice bear video, too. And what you're seeing here is a mother and two of her offspring that visited multiple times, and then I also had a bear and cubs. And I have had multiple bear visits in twenty seven years as well. The next issue I want to show you I'll turn that off next video is in Los Angeles, the city of Los Angeles. And this is what I like to underscore, is what I love is as I split my time these days working on the Wallace Annenberg Wildlife Crossing and have for fourteen years, I have just as much a chance of seeing a mountain lion or encountering a mountain lion where I live outside Yosemite National Park as I do in the city of Los Angeles.
These mountain lions are living on an urbanized landscape with tens of millions of people. And I think that gets back to what we need to look at here. We are all interested for those of us, whether in the nonprofit, government agencies, cattlemen's we're all interested in both protecting wildlife but protecting people and livestock and pets. But to do that, we need to look at the facts and we need to look at the science and we need to look at solutions that work. And what reducing human wildlife conflict is about is changing human behavior.
When you get reports of conflict, when you get statistics about people reporting incidents, that is more indicative of human behavior and the circumstances than what the wildlife is doing. It's not an indication of growing mountain lion populations. Mountain lions are self sustaining. They fight to the death over territory. It's not an example of animals evolving into monsters who are suddenly attacking us.
It is indicative of how we as humans behave and how we as humans deal with coexistence. And I think that's what's great, is we're all in alignment over that. But to get to solutions, to solve this, we need to focus not on fear and misinformation to make policy, but on science based solutions that work. And we know that killing doesn't work. We know that hotspots reflect more human behavior than any difference in wildlife.
And I think we need to stop also equating predation with an increased threat to people. The two are things we need to consider, but treat perhaps a little differently. I'm going to tell you two stories of projects I've worked on with coexistence and how changing behavior works. I, in 1999, started working Yosemite National Park and worked on the Keep Bears Wild program. It is I also failed to mention I have a few books here that are all a lifetime of experience coexisting with wildlife when mountain lions are neighbors, Yosemite wildlife, which I'll quote from, and also coauthored with the Kuhu Conservancy who's here common questions in Kuhu coexistence, which we can get all of you.
Really good factual based information on how to coexist. But in Yosemite National Park in the nineties, you were seeing millions of dollars of property damage with bears. They were breaking into cars. They were eating our food. They were terrorizing campers for ham sandwiches.
And what they were doing for years, for decades, was killing the bears, and it never got better. What Yosemite decided to do, with the help of a mentor of mine, Steve Thompson, was really look at the problem. And it wasn't the bears who were being bears. I will read to you a direct quote from one of the park leadership at the time. We aim to shift responsibility for the situation to people by persuading visitors to act properly rather than blaming the bears for simply being bears and doing what comes natural to them.
This paradigm shift worked. Can advance the slide. With a lot of public education, outreach, even equipment such as food storage in campgrounds, which again I am honored to say I helped with all this, look what happened. Bear incidences went down to almost nothing in Yosemite Valley. Now, this requires resources, that's why we're all here.
You have bear rangers, you have equipment, But by focusing on the human behavior to minimize the conflict, it worked. The second story I wanna tell you is about p twenty two. P twenty two is the famous mountain lion that lives in Los Angeles or lived in Los Angeles. Sadly, he had to be humanely euthanized in 2022. And until he fell ill in 2022, he coexisted peacefully with the millions of people surrounding Griffith Park, as do the population of mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains, in one of the most densely populated areas in the country.
And this gets back to attitudes on how we see wildlife, which then impact how we behave around wildlife. Because of ongoing education, people in the Los Angeles area realize that just the sight of a mountain lion is not cause for concern. That the predators, as that person said in the quote, are usually more scared of us, as some of the research that was presented here is demonstrated. What we did in the LA area was twofold, and a lot of what you've presented here gets at that. One is providing these solutions that can help protect livestock through equipment, through technology.
These are four mountain lion pens that the National Wildlife Federation sponsored in collaboration with the Mountain Lion Foundation I think this was 2015, it's been a long time down there that when a homeowner was having issues with goat predation, we did something that worked. But what we've also done in the Los Angeles area is provide a lot, getting back to that Keep Bears Wild program of ongoing education. This is sometimes very locally community based, sending people in to evaluate properties where there's a conflict, or this overall education, which the P22 Day Festival is a big part of. 15,000 people showed up last year. We had over 100 exhibits showing people how to coexist.
And what you have is again the most densely populated area in the country, if you look at the LA Metropolitan Area, that lives with mountain lions and knows how to deal with conflict. I do an awful lot of school talks. Those school kids know what to do if they see a mountain lion for safety reasons. They know how to protect pets. They know about the science.
You have kids doing studies with the National Park Service science showing about how mountain lion moves and about wildlife crossings and things like that. It comes back to points that people have made here that education can be everything. And I think it is this coexistence ethic if we can get to the next slide that I love seeing throughout. And this is replicable, getting the science and the education out there to the schools, to the communities, whatever it takes. And again, this takes resources, which we'll get to.
We also I don't want to leave out that this is an ecosystem scale problem, as I think Valerie with CDFW addressed this morning and some of the research addressed. That we are in California, 40,000,000 people. We are developing an animals area. We are absolutely degrading their habitat, which is putting stressors on them. And that's why the other things we work on is reestablishing that.
This is the Wallace Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, which I have been honored to work on for fourteen years. We are just months away from ribbon cutting. And this crossing is going to ensure that fragmentation does not lead to the extinction of the local mountain lion population there, and also all wildlife in the area that needs connectivity, because it impacts everything from mountain lions to monarchs. But another thing that this crossing should do, the scientists are predicting, is reduce conflict. Because one of the scientists put up that a lot of these animals that we see who get into trouble because they're teenagers, especially with mountain lions, is because they can't disperse.
They're trapped. They're locked into these territories because of roads. So looking at this on an ecosystem scale is so important. I also want to even look at this on a global scale and connect this to our own human well-being. We've heard a lot about safety issues and the impact on humans, and I agree.
These can be really stressful situations for people. But I'll tell you, as much as mountain lions and rattlesnakes and others can be difficult to live with, we also don't wanna live in a world without them. I grew up on an East Coast where mountain lions were hunted to extinction a hundred years ago. What do you have back east? Now mountain lions are just one spoke in a wheel that impact deer populations, But when you have ecosystems out of balance like the East Coast, you have hot spots of traffic accidents which impact human safety, you have higher incidence of Lyme disease, we have to stop thinking that we are separate from these ecosystems as things like climate and COVID show.
Healthy ecosystems mean human health, and these are things we want to work to protect. And that's why science and solutions are so important. Even for our own human well-being, predators have to be on the landscape. I want to stress secretary Crowfoot's remarks this morning. We are in real alignment here, I think, and I am so glad to see people wanting to work on solutions whatever your background, whatever the situation you're in.
I also agree with secretary Crowfoot that wildlife conflict is not inevitable, but it requires resources and time. And I pledge to you, as I have been for a lifetime, I am here to help people be safe with their wildlife neighbors and provide them the resource to do so, as well as I know our other nonprofits and government agencies here to work with law enforcement, to work with ranchers, to work with communities. But it takes funding, and that's why NWF is cosponsoring this legislation proposed to bring more funding to CDFW. As I said, that bear program took time and money, and we can do this together. I wanted to end with a quote from John Chavec.
He wrote the Predator's Paradox. He says humans are on a collision course with the remaining and rebounding populations of wolves, bears, cougars, and coyotes. The rapid sprawl of civilization forces the issue. Is there anywhere else for predators to go if they can't live on humanity's doorstep? Are there options that would allow us to have carnivores in our kingdom while we protect our livestock, property, and people?
Finally, who is going to jump in the fray between people and predators and end the feud? I think it's California. We lead on so many other issues. We lead in wildlife protection. We're building the nation's largest wildlife crossing to ensure it.
I think all these people here, together, we can come up with science based solutions to make sure that everybody's needs are met, including the wildlife. Thank you very much for your time.
Speaker 2
Do you think that we should be hazing and being more proactive before a wolf or before a wolf is killed?
Speaker 20
Absolutely. Yeah. And as part of the stakeholder working group, we worked really closely with CDFW to outline what the different phases would mean.
Speaker 20
And phase two does allow for more hazing, non injurious hazing of wolves. And, yes, I totally support that. Yeah. And I think that it needs to happen much sooner. I think incredible effort by CDFW, you know, sheriff Fisher, Sierra County, Plymouth County on what happened, in Sierra Valley last year, but it's my understanding that conflicts started occurring with that pack as early as January 2024.
Speaker 20
So, you know, by the time the strike force showed up in June, those wolves had become woefully habituated. And so it's really critical to start early and continue often. And like I said, I I do believe it needs to be at a landscape scale. Thank you for the question.
Speaker 3
Excellent. Excellent. So I got a couple questions, mister Wilbur. I because I know the public's gonna wanna know. Do cattlemen have insurance for some of their losses?
So And what does that do to the insurance industry and or their their profit levels? Because I know you might touch on that in answering the question.
Speaker 16
It it won't shock you that I might not be particularly brief. This came up some years ago in wolf territory, and I can't speak to every livestock insurance agency. But I had reached out to an insurer that we have a really strong relationship with and asked if they had some kind of livestock, you know, predator protection insurance or something along those lines, and it simply wasn't something they offered. It may be something that private insurers do offer in certain circumstances, but I'm not aware of it being widely available on the private insurance market. I should say that there is a federal livestock indemnity program that, as of last year, now provides up to a 100% reimbursement for losses to federally protected species.
Gray wolves, of course, are currently a federally protected species. That used to be a 70% reimbursement. Now it can be up to a 100%. That also has to be in terms of losses above normal. So if you've got a certain baseline of losses to wolves, you know, that you can expect on your operation, you're not going to be reimbursed for each of those losses.
You'll be reimbursed for the losses above normal. Additionally, we talked a lot today about the costs of nonlethal deterrence, the costs of living with wolves and ranching with wolves. Those kind of things are not at all compensated by the federal government. Hence, our priority, perhaps our insistence that California needs to do more, not necessarily in direct loss compensation, but in compensating nonlethal deterrence, because I think we all agree that we want to prevent conflicts from happening, but also, you know, compensating those stress effects, those losses of pregnancies, etcetera, that the feds, and as far as I'm aware, most private insurers do not compensate.
Speaker 3
And the stress on people. So that brings me to mister Fisher. And you gotta be brief because I got public comment more over time. You warned me. But is there additional training that folks in your line of work could use to help with the nonlethal deterrence?
Speaker 21
Yes. Absolutely. And, actually, I've been working with the department. I know Kevin Thomas. I'm not sure if he's still sitting behind me, but he was earlier.
He and I have been in communication along with the UC extension, and we're developing a entire hazing program in which I've offered up, my staff to teach it. I have firearm instructors and so forth, and it would include, not only my personnel from sworn law enforcement that would receive specialized training so my deputies could go out if we had a wolf in the area, mountain lion, a bear, and they could utilize. What I would foresee to be useful is less lethal rubber bullets Yeah. Fin stabilized beam bags. The pyrotechnics in the wintertime when fire danger is low, and those are essentially shotgun based munitions that are, like, really loud firecrackers or whistlers that they're not shot at the animal.
They're shot in the vicinity, and it and it scares them away. And then pepper balls that are shot out of a paintball gun, and they have oleocaps and pepper spray inside of them. And these are all discomfort. You know, it's not a punitive. It's it's simply a mechanism to get that animal to break its behavior and move on.
So I'm working with the department, and I'm hopeful that we can develop a training program and, you know, get it deployed not only for law enforcement but for our ranching communities as well.
Speaker 3
Ex excellent. Yeah. Because it would seem like you're more immediate than DFW in the sense that you're you're right out there on the front lines.
Speaker 3
And it seems like some of this nonlethal remedies, if you will, it it requires or or their their success is really based on how quickly they can be deployed. And so I appreciate your candor and your willingness to do additional training with your staff. And I hope that goes out to other law enforcement that are in the hithers as I call it. Because the urgency with which ranchers might need your assistance can't be understated sometimes so that they can get sleep, among other things. And so I've got just a couple real brief use miss Bozel, you said you'd love to host DFW.
I've got some nice DFW people here. I just wanna confirm that they will show up and take LA County up on its offer, because I I agree with you, and and you are a behemoth in a lot of ways. While you might be small territory wise compared to perhaps District 1, you're dealing with, I think, things very closely on the front lines to coexisting. So I appreciate a lot of what you offered. And some of your materials were very concise the types of interactions, from a sighting to a little more interaction and a little more interaction, and then how to respond within those confines.
So I was very interested in that. And then finally, for Ms. Pratt, because I don't I know Ms. Frisch, but you were so thorough, I have nothing for you. But Ms.
Pratt, if you could briefly, are there other areas of the state where we might see where I mean, Ann Arbor project Wallace Ann Arbor project is a very expensive one. But are there other areas of the state where resources could be deployed, where we could have some effective ability for for wildlife to move?
Speaker 23
Yeah. Thank you. It's a great question. We're already working on that. I think the good news is there will never be another, crossing as complex or costly as the Annenberg because there's no other 101 Freeway.
I'll we picked the hardest one outside the back, but I also founded the Wildlife Crossing Fund. I'm working directly with secretary, Wade Crowfoot, and the director of Caltrans and others, and we are looking at raising more private dollars to put crossings all across the state. Some in rural counties, some in and we already have kind of a targeted list. Caltrans has some priorities in CDFW. So I think it is, you know, a really good point that the coexistence is only gonna work if the wildlife have habitats that can sustain them as well.
So we're working that side
Speaker 3
as well. Very fascinating. And I'm glad to hear that you are cobbling together resources because oftentimes, that's what those projects take, including private money. Yeah. So I I thank you for your efforts in that regard.
I didn't know that you had a whole under off shoot for for such endeavors. So with that, I wanna thank all of you for being here. You know, this this panel of all panels was really where where wildlife and human interaction were going to and and livestock, of course, mister Wilbur, I won't leave you We're we're gonna meet. So I appreciate the conversation and the tenor of the conversation and the constructiveness of it. So thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 3
very Thank you. Gonna go to public comments. So here's what I'm gonna do. If you could restrict your comments to just a couple sentences, that would be fabulous. Because I do and I think the committee wants to hear from you.
But in order to give everybody an opportunity, just be concise. As as Mark Twain used to say, if he had more time, he'd be more concise. So I encourage you to take that on. Yes. And please tell us your name, where you're from.
Speaker 13
Oh, hi. Good afternoon. Can you hear me? Okay. Hi.
Good afternoon. My name is Corina Domingo, and I'm the founder and
Speaker 13
I'm the founder and executive director of Cougar Conservancy. Our mission is simple. We help communities coexist with Cougars. Since 2020, we've worked across California in noncommercial settings, supporting residents, recreationists, local leaders with practical science based solutions from helping families, you know, cougar proof enclosures at home to providing technical assistance after conflict occurs. We focus on meeting people where they're at in communities.
Our work is complementary to CDFW, and we've worked with them on community events as well as alongside staff on specific conflict cases throughout the state to better serve the public. But since the human wildlife conflict program funding was cut, community needs have still not been, you know, slowed. And so while nonprofits like ours can help bridge the gaps, we, you know, really want communities from Humboldt to San Diego County to be able to have trained specialists with regulatory authority who could respond directly to those concerns within communities on the ground. Those programs are really critical. I've shared examples
Speaker 13
I've shared, yeah. I'm I'm I'm wrapping it up. I've shared, materials with your guys' offices on successful case studies, and I also have some for department staff and everyone else. Thank you.
Speaker 24
Good afternoon, madam chair and members. Jennifer Fearing here today on behalf of San Diego Humane Society's Project Wildlife. We're one of the state's largest nonprofit wildlife rehab organizations were licensed by the Department of Fish and Wildlife and partner with them, and we see firsthand what happens when coexistence programs are underfunded and unavailable. Last year, we admitted nearly 12,000 injured, ill, or orphaned wild animals, including a recent two month old orphan bear club who was separated from its mother in a human wildlife conflict. We use exclusively with a tiny I think it's $10,000 a year in a grant from the state of California.
The rest of the dollars to support our around the clock care for all these animals is coming from private donations and our volunteers. We desperately need leadership from the state investing in upstream coexistence programs, and so we're urging the legislature and the governor to commit to $15,000,000 a year for comprehensive wildlife coexistence staff, equipment, and local assistance for the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Thank you.
Speaker 25
Good afternoon, madam chair. Rico Mastrodonato with the Trust for Public Land. My comments are that you said this a couple hours ago, actually. It always boils down to money. You know, for some reason, CNRA has been completely dependent on voter approved bonds or the occasional surplus to keep, you know, excellent departments like CDFW staffed up to even a basic program level.
And what I learned from this hearing was that a little goes a long way. It sounds like $20,000,000 $25,000,000 annually could make a huge impact on human wildlife conflict compensation program. But we can't keep doing this, whether it's, human animal conflict or climate change, by bonds and surpluses. It's just not a strategic way to address a huge problem.
Speaker 20
Good afternoon, madam chair and members. Karen Stout here on behalf of the Animal Legal Defense Fund. I'll keep it short and sweet. Well, we strongly appreciate you convening this hearing, and we also support the creation and funding of a statewide statewide wildlife conservation fund. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 26
Amy Wolfram here on behalf of the California Association of Zoos and Aquariums as well as Monterey Bay Aquarium, and we are here in support of the state getting the sufficient and stable resources at the scale needed to address this issue.
Speaker 21
Good afternoon. Michael Chan with Audubon, California. Thank you, madam chair, for hosting this informational hearing. Any and all efforts to address human wildlife conflict is good for conservation and good for us, all. So thank you so much.
Speaker 27
Chair Pappan, members of the committee, my name is Amaruq Weiss. I'm the senior wolf advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit organization with over 1,800,000 members and supporters nationwide, 215,000 of which live right here in California. Myself, I'm a biologist and a former attorney. I have worked specifically in the field of wolf recovery policy and conservation for nearly thirty years across The United States and at the federal level. And I would say what those experiences have taught me is that we are limited only by our imagination, our desire, and our willpower to pave a path forward for coexistence with wildlife.
It is what most of Californians want. It's what our wildlife deserves. And just as importantly, it's also a necessity because as you've heard today, the best available science concludes that the best way for coexistence, the most effective way is to proactively use nonlethal measures in advance instead of repeatedly killing wildlife. Thank you so much for this opportunity for all of us to hear from all the experts you invited here today.
Speaker 29
Good morning. My name is Fleur Doors. I'm the director of communications at Interfensive Animals, a California based organization with over a quarter million supporters, and 25,000 of them are in California. Thank you for considering nonlethal approaches to human wildlife conflict mitigation. Prevention, public education are essential, which we've heard here today.
And in many cases, changes that are simple in human behavior can prevent the conflict before it escalates. We have seen this work in practice ourselves through our work with Cougar Conservancy and Kindred Spirits Care Farm, where we help to build a fully enclosed compassion barn that protects sanctuary residents while allowing peaceful coexistence with local mountain lions and coyotes. We strongly support robust restrictions and bans and oppose any effort to weaken existing protections, and exclusion practices, which are safer, more effective, and prevents the secondary poisoning of wildlife like mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, hawks, and owls. We oppose hunting of mute swans and killing barred owls, and instead, we urge nonlethal population management for all species, including wild hogs who travel through our animal sanctuary in Central California, which can be coexisted with quite easily using exclusionary fencing and immunocontraception. Thank you for ensuring California continues to lead with science, compassion, and coexistence.
Speaker 30
Hello. My name is Susan Dewar. I'm the founder of the California Wolf Foundation, and I wanna thank the assembly for having us today and allowing us this opportunity to speak. As California's recovering wolf population has grown, it's become clear how important private working lands and the stewards of those lands will be to the continued success of Wolf Recovery. We can't talk about coexistence without putting the people managing working lands at the front of the conversation.
I'm here to show support for the reinstatement and expansion of the Wolf Deterrent Tool grant fund and the pay for presence program and to request that we increase agency staffing to levels appropriate to provide effective management of these programs and timely emergency response. I'd also like to request that the state consider funding to continue the research of the California Wolf Project and to establish wolf liaisons in each of the wolf, wolf occupied counties using the Siskiyou County as a model. You for your time.
Speaker 22
Good afternoon. Hello. My name is Erica Sandoval. I am not affiliated with any organization. I'm here to urge the committee to fund the wildlife coexistence program.
Over the past three years, my husband and I have spent, several hours of our own free time going to Yellowstone and studying wolves. I've witnessed the misconception of them being aggressive and killing everything in their path. I've seen how these packs work together, how they're family, and they only take what they need. I believe there's opportunity in California to educate communities and ranchers on alternative methods such as rag boxing and playing sounds of rival packs as a deterrent. On Sunday, I had more affirmation that we need to coexist.
While at church, the father spoke that all animals are god's creatures and how we are judged on how we treat them. Rather than react with lethal actions, let's work together and discover ways to coexist. Thank you for your time and allowing me to be a voice for the voiceless.
Speaker 31
Hello, committee. My name is Anjali Ranadeva. I am the founder of Woman for Wolves, and I stand here on behalf of over a 138,000 supporters in favor of refunding the wildlife coexistence program. And I was going to talk to you about science and stats, but you heard a lot of that today. I was gonna say how wolves help reduce deer collisions by 24% in areas where they're present.
But instead, I'll tell you my story just really quickly. In the darkest period of my life, wolves and wildlife, they saved me. They brought me back to myself, and they helped me remember who I was. And we are all a part of nature. Nature helps us remember.
And because of that, Woman for Wolves has educated thousands of youth, reached millions of people, saved hundreds of animals, helped over a 100 women in career paths mental health, also given grants to indigenous organizations, and invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into California's communities. So I stand here to tell you that protecting wildlife protects what it means to be human, and that is why we need to refund coexistence. We work with guardian dog rescues. We are an animal and wolf dog sanctuary. So whoever wants to collaborate, we are ready, and we are eager.
Everyone wants the same thing, less conflict, more collaboration. So let's invest in an ethical future for California. Thank you.
Speaker 32
Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Verna Hatchme. I am the cofounder of Women for Wolves, and I am here today to urge you guys to refund California's wildlife coexistence program. Lethal removal often leaves wolf pups orphaned and fractures packs. It pushes inexperienced young wolves sorry.
Inexperienced young wolves into survival mode where they are more likely to wander, take risks, and turn to easy prey. Coexistence builds long term solutions instead of short term fixes. California has the opportunity to lead with wisdom and set the precedent for protecting our diverse state and its wildlife. Please choose coexistence. Please choose nonlethal.
Thank you.
Speaker 33
Good afternoon. My name is Tracy Eisner. I also work for Woman for Wolves. I've also worked as a conservationist and researchers with sharks in Hawaii, lions in Zimbabwe, and cheetahs in South Africa, so I know predators very well. In every case I have seen, nonlethal mitigation benefits all stakeholders.
Science also agrees with me, and there's study after study to prove this. This is an emotional subject with people on both sides fired up, but we need to look at the science that shows everyone wins with nonlethal use. You kill one apex predator, and you're simply making room for more mesopredators. And with species like coyotes, killing a few can actually increase their numbers due to compensatory response. Lethal force is outdated.
We can't just keep resorting to killing them. We must follow the science. I thank you for your support.
Speaker 34
Good afternoon, madam chair. Stacy Heaton with the rural county representatives of California. We represent 40 rural counties statewide, and, assembly member Hadwick's district completely encompasses our counties. So we hear about this issue a lot. Our CRC was the organization that asked for the initial funding for the state's wolf compensation program three or four years ago when that was funded in the budget.
And so we are most definitely interested in solving the wildlife conflict issue, particularly since so many of our counties rely on ranching and livestock operations for their economics. However, I think it would be unwise for us to discount the concerns of the residents of those communities. Particularly with gray wolves, they are large animals. They are predatory animals, and we're seeing evidence that they're hunting for sport, not just for what they need. Recently, there was a horse killed in a pasture near a home that was the the family's, you know, horse that their children rode, and it was attacked.
It was not killed. It was not eaten. So we're seeing some sport hunting happening with these animals. We are committed to engaging with CDFW. We have been engaging with them for a while.
We're hoping we've seen, improvements in communication there. We're hoping to consin continue to see improvements of communication and collaboration with CDFW, and, we support permanent sustained funding for all of the state's wolf management programs and predatory species management programs. Thank you.
Speaker 30
Hello. My name is Sophie Hughes, and I am the sanctuary director and a wolf dog specialist at Women for Wolves. And I have seen firsthand how fear and misinformation drive conflict. I'm here to urge you to fund the wildlife coexistence program and prioritize nonlethal deterrent strategies. Investing in coexistence aligns with California's values.
It supports our rural communities, saves taxpayer dollars, and strengthens our ecosystem's resilience. We have the science, and we have the tools. What we need now is the commitment to act. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 35
Hello. I'm Veronica Figueroa. I work for an environmental company, but I'm also here with Woman for Wolves. And we're all after the same thing where we want to refund the wildlife existence program. I also have kids, and they love the outdoors and teaching them wildlife and coexistence.
And I think goes hand in hand in helping the future of kids also learn that in education. Thank you.
Speaker 36
Good morning. My name is Tara Daddari, and I'm the director of technology and a wolf dog specialist at Women for Wolves. In my work, I use data and research to support wildlife conservation and coexistence efforts. The data I work with consistently shows one thing: nonlethal methods are more effective than lethal control. According to a peer reviewed study published in PLUS ONE by researchers at the University of Wisconsin, killing wolves after livestock depredation did not reduce future losses.
Instead, it increased conflict for neighboring farms by disrupting pack structure. Any perceived benefit was localized in short term. In contrast, tools like range riders, fladry, and guardian animals reduced conflict over the long term and helped protect our ecosystems. Beyond the data, I've seen firsthand how nonlethal tools shape behavior, teaching wolves to avoid conflict rather than escalate it. Behaviors learned and coexistence is something that can be taught.
These methods work with natural instincts, allowing wolves, livestocks, and communities to share the landscape long term. Reestablishing and funding the wildlife coexistence program is not just compassionate. It's evidence based, cost effective, and better for communities.
Speaker 37
you, community members. My name's Isha Salwan, and I'm with Environment California. As a statewide environmental advocacy group, we have heard stories, both urban and rural, that echo the increase in wildlife conflict across the state. These can leave people scared and angry, but these stories also echo the urgent need to protect our communities and threatened wildlife by having more experts on the ground ready to help prevent conflicts and that have the tools to help contend with conflicts as they occur. We believe we can all coexist without destroying the iconic wildlife that makes California so special.
Thank you.
Speaker 38
Good afternoon, chair. My name is Jenny Berg, and I'm the California state director for Humane World for Animals, pre formerly, Humane Society of the United States. I just wanna thank you so much for this incredible hearing and the discussions today. I think I align with many of the amazing work that our partner organizations are doing, and we strongly support securing durable funding for these nonlethal wildlife coexistence efforts. And I'm excited to see what happens this year as we move some of these issues forward.
Thank you.
Speaker 1
Good afternoon. Alex Lumer. Today, just speaking as a resident of District 1. Thanks to the advocacy of a lot of our supervisors in the wake of the Caldor and Tamarac fires, we were able to get funding from CDFW to allow residents who couldn't normally afford bear boxes to install bear boxes. And that coupled with CDFW coming in and spending their evenings doing webinars for our local community about how to lessen interactions with bears has made a huge difference.
We all live in Tahoe because we really care about the wildlife. We love living in harmony with these animals. We wanna ensure that we're protecting them. And when bears are being put down, it breaks the hearts of everyone in the Tahoe area. And so this is a huge priority, and we really thank the committee for taking their time this morning to learn more about it.
And we strongly support additional funding to go to CDFW to enhance the wildlife human coexistence program. Thank you.
Speaker 12
Afternoon. Thank you for hearing us, and I'm sure you're very tired and hungry. My name is Courtney Lee. I am an attorney for fourteen years. I was a full time professor at McGeorge School of Law, where, among others, I taught animal law and focused my scholarly research and publication in that area.
I'm also on the board of a local farm animal sanctuary. And to echo other comments, I really ask you respectfully to provide the support and the finances necessary to forward these nonlethal methods. Thank you so much.
Speaker 24
Good afternoon. My name is Danielle Hanisch. I run a local farm animal sanctuary, and I'm also the cofounder of LEAP, which is a nonprofit, teaching humane education, ethics, and leadership training to youth across the country. I'm here to support this increase in funding for the science backed nonlethal predator deterrent methods discussed. I actually use many of these methods myself with my rescued animals, including a very effective livestock guardian dog.
I also ask today that you integrate deeper antispecies ethics into these decisions through compassionate conservation, which reframes our relationship as humans with our nonhuman animal, friends and recognizing each individual for their inherent value in their ecosystem and to their species as a whole. As you know, somewhat ironically, we have a grizzly bear on our state flag, an animal who was completely eradicated from California through lethal force, and our generation does not wanna make that mistake again. Please support funding for wildlife coexistence through these ethics and nonlethal methods. Thank you.
Speaker 39
Chair, Steven Finaroli with the California Farm Bureau. Just tremendous thanks to you and assembly member Hadwick for spending now going on four hours talking about predators, and, you can see it's a an important issue. I would, really just call out, you know, let's be bold. Let's use technology. Let's embrace the future, in everything that we do and and policies that we put forward.
Seconding the, you know, financial ask around, producers and and reimbursements that, also incumbent in there is, you know, money for more research, funding UC, funding extension. It seems, you know, inappropriate to continue to ask the department to do more without the resources required to do it. And when there's two wolf specialists asked to traverse all of Central And Northern California, That's a tall order, and, you know, we almost set them up to fail. So excited to see where we can come to some agreement on this. Thank you.
Speaker 28
Good afternoon. Lizzie Guanzona here on behalf of the office of Kat Taylor and Tomcat LLC. Thank you so much for hosting this hearing today. Just briefly, the increasing number of human wildlife contacts present significant on the ground challenges, including impacts on producers' resilience, ecosystem balance, and overall habitat health. Like many here today here encouraging additional funding for CDFW, I recognize it's a difficult budget year, but this is an important issue.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 40
Rick Riberti, Sierra Valley rancher, and I think it's appropriate that I go last. We've heard a lot from people today, and we've heard a lot from Sierra Valley. And I'll tell you, I'm highly offended at some of the things I've heard because none of no one out of these people lived through what we lived through this year. We've created a monster in a in a wolf that is not afraid of people anymore. It's not the same wolf that was here.
And there's no more people in my area than there was in the eighteen sixties, maybe less. We've got a problem, and we we need to solve it because ranchers can't do this anymore. The department has tried to help, but there's not one thing they've done that can stop a wolf today from doing what they do. The last one, when the wolf got hit in Willow Creek right outside a house, what was the department what the department do? They sent a text message saying, are they still there?
Well, they're here every night. We need help, but we don't need a bunch of talk. And all the people that get up here and say, we need to coexist, that's easy for them to say. They're not living what we lived with. This is a problem.
Thank you for today. I want you to meet with the people who actually went through this. That'll tell you more about our wolf situation than it will from anybody else who is here today. Thank you.
Speaker 3
Okay. Going once, going twice. Thank you all for being here. We're adjourned.
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