Three Voices, One Crisis: How Wolves Became a Public Safety Emergency in Lassen County

Perry Thompson (00:01): Okay. Well, welcome everyone excited for another episode of the North state rocks podcast. today we're doing something new. We haven't had multiple people on at the same time, but today we're really excited to invite back again, ⁓ Richard Egan, who has been on with us before did an awesome job. Richard is a local Lassen County rancher and has a lot of experience with County policymaking. He's a former CAO at Lassen County.

Wyatt Hanson (00:08): Okay. Okay. ⁓

Perry Thompson (00:30): Super excited to have him on the podcast. ⁓ have Wyatt Hanson, who is with the Willow Creek Ranch. I get that right, Wyatt. So Willow Creek Ranch, excited to have you on. You're kind of ⁓ more boots on the ground front lines of been dealing with some wolf kills directly, which we're very sorry about, but excited for your perspective on what it really looks like in the real world, you know, instead of a lot of people just speculating.

Wyatt Hanson (00:37) Yes. Yeah.

Perry Thompson (00:56): And then super excited to have John McGarva, our current Lassen County Sheriff. John, thank you so much for joining us. And what I love about John, John is one of the sheriffs in the state that is just in the middle of this challenge that everybody's dealing with. And I would say a terrific partner to the ranchers and the people in the North State. And I wish every county was blessed to have a sheriff like John. So excited for all three of you guys today. ⁓ Really excited about it. What we want to do is really not, this isn't a pro-wolf or anti-wolf or anything like that. So what we're really talking about is what it looks like in the real world when people make policies that affect ⁓ people's lives and livelihoods and the real challenges that we're seeing up here in Northeastern California. So, with that, I think maybe we start with ⁓ Wyatt, why don't you just...

Wyatt Hanson (01:38) Okay. Okay.

Perry Thompson (01:52) Give us a little bit of background of about where your ranch is, how long your family's been around and just a little bit about ⁓ your background, please.

Wyatt Hanson (02:04) Yeah, born and raised in Lassen County. I'm fourth generation rancher here in the Willow Creek Valley, just outside of Susanville. It's a family outfit. It's me and my father and my brother. I'll work on the ranch here and with Cow Calf Operation. And we've been here for my dad moved up here in 1982. But like I said, my family's been here. My mom's side since 1904.

Perry Thompson (02:37): Wow. Awesome. Awesome. That's terrific. That's terrific. And then Richard, uh, kind of give us your background. I know people listen to the podcast before, but why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and, and we're really excited to have you on.

Richard Egan (02:52) Sure, yeah, thanks Perry. So we've, we're newcomers relative to the Hanson crowd up there. We've been, my family's been up here raising cattle since 1970 and we graze in several different counties, but in the summertime we're up in the Plumas National Forest a lot with some grazing allotments and some private leases that we have up there and that's where we've been encountering the the trouble with the wolves over the last several years. And it were, I think similar to the Hansons in predominantly a cow-calf operation, but we take our cattle all the way through to slaughter by sending them to Colorado, feeding them out there and selling them when they're ready to go. So,

Wyatt Hanson (03:21) Okay. Okay.

Perry Thompson (03:41) Awesome,

Richard Egan (03:41) yeah.

Perry Thompson (03:42) excellent. And John, ⁓ let's give us a little bit about your background. Obviously we know you're Lassen County Sheriff, ⁓ but you're again, ⁓ not only are you dealing with, you bring a unique public safety element to this that I don't think is talked about enough. And then also just your deputies are on the front lines with the rancher. So if you could elaborate a little bit about your background and a little bit about kind of where.

Wyatt Hanson (03:56) Okay. Okay.

Perry Thompson (04:09) what you're seeing from your side of the world.

John McGarva (04:13) Thank you. I'm, ⁓ I took over a sheriff in 2024. ⁓ excuse me. I grew up in Lassen County, grew up in Westwood. ⁓ family's got a strong ranching background. my extended family still maintains a ranch in Modoc County. So I've spent a lot of time, you know, especially when my dad worked on ranches and spent a lot of time working with them. Different things, ⁓ as I was growing up, the public safety portion of this has been,

Wyatt Hanson (04:29) Okay.

John McGarva (04:40) ⁓ really real. I got, ⁓ kind of involved in this in early March, late February when the Dixie Valley Ranch was experiencing some serious issues up there. And they were starting to have the wolves coming closer and closer to residential areas. They were within 50 feet of a house or less. Really started to show that they are becoming more more habituated to humans. It's not a concern to them anymore that... You know, we're there. They're not, we're not, humans aren't a deterrent. So it's becoming a, became a public safety issue where, you know, they weren't running from humans anymore. They were just hanging out, seeing them during the daylight, just the change in the wolf behavior. And then we were seeing more and more, uh, contacts in the, you know, during the daytime and openly, it was, uh, definitely atypical to wolf behavior, contrary to what we're being told by fish and wildlife. So. That's kind where I got involved. then just to continue to just seems to continue to escalate over this past year, you know, especially in our County, I've been trying to stay focused with what's going on here, even though I know that our neighbors have experienced some, serious, ⁓ Depredations in the Sierra Valley, but that's where I got drawn in. And, and from the public safety standpoint of, there's no real mechanism for us to, to address the wolves as they're coming in, unlike with mountain lions or

Wyatt Hanson (05:59)

John McGarva (06:09) bears where I can issue a public safety threat directive or depredation of the animal, I can't do that with wolves because they're double protected. So it's really been a challenge this year for us to work through that, that's basic.

Wyatt Hanson (06:15) Okay.

Perry Thompson (06:24) So I think I understand that John, but I want to be clear. You literally are handcuffed from, I think this particular wolf is a public safety issue and I'm in charge of public safety for all of Lassie County, but you literally can't do anything. you have to, so what do you do? Like, hey, these wolves are around this house or within 50 feet of this house, there's some.

John McGarva (06:40): You

Perry Thompson (06:52): I'm just trying to paint a picture that there's young children here. I'm not saying that's the case, but I am saying if you have that example, that of extreme example, what would you do? What can you do and what can't you do?

Wyatt Hanson (06:56): you

John McGarva (07:07): So there's still a mechanism in the law that if they are a threat to human life, that they can't, that with any animal that you can defend yourself against that animal. So if they're threatening, they're on your property and they're threatening your children or your family members or yourself, then yes, you can take action to try and deal with the threat. That's still a mechanism even in the Endangered Species Act, there's allowances for that. The problem with the public safety standpoint is,

Perry Thompson (07:33) Okay.

John McGarva (07:38) I'm not the chances of one of me or one of my deputies being there when that occurs is, is very slim. The county of Lassen is about the size of the state of Connecticut. And there's a lot of ground to cover and I only got so many deputies to cover it with. So really it's dependent on what the person thinks when they're there. And then there'll be a full blown investigation from the state more than likely that comes in and handles that. So now we're having to just, you you're almost justifying your actions. almost a reverse, you're guilty until proven innocent mentality that comes with that. And that's, ⁓ that's unfortunate. Like you have to prove that you were threatened. You know, you're so, and I've seen some videos from different ranches up there where, you know, wolves have been aggressive towards people or ran at people and not just up there, but everywhere. mean, I know that Wyatt and Richard and I both talked about these things at length at different times. They are becoming more aggressive towards the public and that's where I come in and I'm trying to

Wyatt Hanson (08:10) Okay.

Perry Thompson (08:11) Yeah. Yeah.

John McGarva (08:36) you know, push the issue forward saying this has become a public safety as the sheriff. As you said, Perry, I'm in charge of public safety and I'm not going to allow this to continue, but I still got to work within the laws in which I'm I'm framed with. I can't authorize people to violate the law either.

Perry Thompson (08:52) Yeah, understood. Wow. Okay. All right. So Wyatt, can you take us through what an actual wolf encounter, I may be wrong, but I think you've actually dealt with this firsthand with a kill. Is that accurate or not?

Wyatt Hanson (09:07) Yes, yeah, no, I Our first kill was last November 7th. And since then we've had nine confirmed kills. And ⁓ we've had others that were not able to be confirmed because there was not much there. Some were unknown again, because there wasn't wasn't the ability to confirm it. We also Lisa ranch in Sierra County where we had three kills there. Again, one confirmed two went unknown. And with that, ⁓ We’ve had our county trapper out. ⁓ We've also had the state come out and they've looked at the kills. They've investigated them. And then after that, after the first one, especially you really start ⁓ getting nervous for your animals. ⁓ Certainly when you're out at night, you get nervous for your own safety when you're around. ⁓ It just really gets you on high alert. We've seen the wolves a few times. They tend to be fairly elusive. We don't go out and see them every night, every other night, every week. ⁓ I wish that that were the case because then you'd be able to prevent some of these things from happening. So when you go out at night, you hope not to find anything. Of course, if you do, then you don't have a lot you can do, but hopefully chase them out of your field and hope that you don't find a kill. ⁓

Perry Thompson (10:31) Thank

Wyatt Hanson (10:45) with that. This year we've seen them a little bit more, a little bit more presence. Luckily, we've, say luckily, we have not had a kill since December, early December of this year. But with that, like I say, it's just a very eerie, it's an eerie feeling when they're here. I don't know how to explain it, but it's just a feeling that you have. And like I said, you don't see them every day. You don't see them every night. You don't see them every other day. But when they're around, you certainly know it. Your animals act weird. Your dogs act weird. Your neighbors, they'll act strange. And it's just certainly something that takes a greater toll than just losing an animal or having an animal killed by them. It certainly changes your, how you feel about the ranch and how your life is and your sleep patterns and everything else.

Perry Thompson (11:44) Holy cow, ⁓ I've talked to lot of ranchers that have had kills, ⁓ but you are by, I've never heard me personally that I've talked to. I haven't talked to anybody that has the amount of destruction that you have dealt with and devastation that you have dealt with. First of all, my condolences for you and your family. I'm so sorry to hear that you've been so directly hit by this. ⁓ Yeah, again, I apologize. I knew that you had dealt with with at least a kill, but can you, I want to make sure I heard that right. our audience heard that right. So, can you tell us how many on the Willow Creek ranch? And then I heard the ground up in Siskiyou County too. So how many here in Lassen County, we're talking about, look by me a little more specific and then, ⁓ can you just go through that one more time on the number of kills and when they start, said November, was that November of this year or the previous year?

Wyatt Hanson (12:44) On November 7th ⁓ of last year was our first kill. ⁓ For us personally, actually, a neighbor had an animal that was run onto our pasture.

Perry Thompson (12:48) Okay. Okay.

Wyatt Hanson (12:55) And that was the first interaction that I had with wolves. We didn't really know that they were around. I mean, we know that they certainly could and it was possible. And I was going out, ⁓ checking the heifers like I would any other day. And there was one heifer that didn't get up. And as I drove over, I noticed a blood trail and I surely thought the heifer was dead. And I got up to the heifer. She stood up and just blood just came out of her rear. Just they. They literally tore it from the outside to the inside. And just so happened to, unfortunately, a bit was a neighbor's that was run through into our fence and in with our heifers. But since that day, personally, the Willow Creek Ranch lost six. And for that fall, two in the spring of 2020 or 2025. And then so far this fall, we've had three additional kills. ⁓ With the last one being early December here ⁓ in the ranch that we lease down in Sierra County, we had three investigations with one. Being confirmed kill that was actually with a partner and. The other two kills, one had wolf DNA on it. and it could not be confirmed. And the other one was actually probably one of the first we'll seen on that side of the that side of the mountain towards Washoe County actually is where it is. It's right right there at the border.

Perry Thompson (14:40) Okay, so. done one other podcast on wolves. How do you have wolf DNA on the animal and then that kill is not confirmed? Can you explain that to me? I'm really struggling with that with just a common sense approach to that.

Wyatt Hanson (14:56) Yeah. ⁓ I wish I could explain it myself. I've I talked with multiple people about it ⁓ at the state. And I they certainly gave a response that that they were willing to adjust it to an unknown kill. I still consider it a kill myself. We actually the the calf that was confirmed was killed a few days later and. was a confirmed kill because they put a camera on it, a game cam, and it had the wolf come up to it and sniff on the carcass. However, the investigation used the DNA that was taken off of our calf to confirm that kill, when of course the other way around, because we didn't have a picture of a wolf because there was a game camera on it. Ours was not confirmed. ⁓ Since then, it seems that... Certainly with the rest of the investigations, we've been more successful in it being a confirmed kill. ⁓ As we know with the confirmed kill, you are compensated or supposed to be compensated one day. But with that, also you just, in my mind, you want to make sure that this is represented correctly and that every kill or investigation at least has somewhat of a record that will go to the state and will get out on these wolf reports and will not go unnoticed, if you will. And so that's why I say that we've had all these investigations and I do have the confirmed kills and the unknowns. And certainly I believe that there is enough information there for it to be a wolf kill. But I guess I understand where the state comes. for some of these investigations to make it confirmed. But with that one, yeah, I'm not entirely, I still can't come to terms with it.

Perry Thompson (17:13) Yeah. know, what people, think the thing that people miss is that, you know, getting compensated for, for the animal is just a kind of the tip of the spear. ⁓ that's the, that the ranchers are dealing with, right? You know, so obviously when the, when the herd is under, you know, puts the whole herd under stress, you're just saying how weird the, animals act and the, and the dogs act. mean, ⁓ I've read the statistics about weight loss for the entire herd, ⁓ conception rates going down, miscarriage rates going up. ⁓ When the herd is under that kind of stress, the rancher is being hit all these ways that just aren't easily documented. You know, it's not really a blame thing. I'm not saying, you know, that I have the perfect solution, but what I do know is that the current, you know, pain for the animal that's only confirmed kills is just a fraction of what ranchers are really dealing with, right? And ⁓ more importantly, ⁓ I think, I don't want to speak for you, but it seems like it would make more sense to have

Wyatt Hanson (18:07) Thank

Perry Thompson (18:31) to give you guys the tools to manage it properly in conjunction with law enforcement or whatever that looks like. But before we get to solutions, I guess I want to try to talk more about making sure people understand ⁓ the real cost. So can you take us through, since you've had so many kills, Watt, can you take us through what compensation really looks like right now and what that process looks like and how long it takes and... and whether, know, I'm being told I've heard that it's market value, I've heard that it's not market value, because market values are pretty high. What does that process and the end result really look like on the ground?

Wyatt Hanson (19:14) Yeah, so once it's confirmed or probable, you then take out the proper paperwork and you fill it out and you have to fill out certain other forms of course to make it all legitimate with the state. ⁓ So there's that portion of it that makes sure that obviously it's taxable and everything else and they have a trail for that. But then you have to produce some detail, some evidence of. how much money that animal is worth and where you came up with that number. So what we did is we were able to bring over the past few years and take an average of when that animal was sold, how much those animals typically would weigh, and then we try to find a comparable price for how much that animal is worth today. There's various ways that you can do that. As the time we've had, it seems like we've had some mix ups with the state and paperwork and dates. I think we were about to be paid once and the funds might have gone or might have been starting to send the final check to Willow Creek Ranch that's down in Central Valley. I had to look up where it even was. And so we had to restart the process, which again is fine. It's supposed to be a fairly simple process, but we seem to be having the mixed ups where we have not been paid yet. ⁓ We're certainly in contact with the state. They're not hiding from us or anything else, but it has been a bit of a process that we certainly would wish was an easier to deal with. With that, I think the confirmed and probable, like you said, does make sense for the individual kill. And certainly I hope and I think that the state is looking towards other roads that we can go to get some more reimbursement for. the weight loss, the border calves, ⁓ the culling of cows. We've culled two cows that were from these calves because they were not uncontrollable, but they certainly were not an animal that we would typically keep from their experiences. And again, yeah, I'm not sure how we get to that number and how that will be presented. Certainly, know Richard and I would... be part of that process or have ranchers part of the process when they do try to fix the funding as to what is a more real number of the effect of the animals. And I will add, I know we're talking a lot about the compensation is of course we always still wish that this was not something that we have to do, of course. And I just want to be able to send you that. I know that we're talking about the numbers and the animals.

Perry Thompson (22:30) person.

Richard Egan (22:32) And.

Wyatt Hanson (22:36) Of course, we just wish that we could take this animal to market and we sell it like we do with all the other animals. Because it's just such a small portion of what the problem is, is what can be solved with this compensation program as it is right now.

Richard Egan (22:54) Perry, if I could just comment on the compensation ⁓ program that's gone on, and we've been dealing with this since the beginning. The department is incredibly incompetent in administering the compensation program. And I think it stems from a couple of things, partly their culture, but also the Department of Fish and Wildlife has never really wanted to ⁓ deal with any compensation. program. In fact, both compensation programs that have been ⁓ established have basically been forced upon them by legislature. ⁓ legislature in I think 2022 ⁓ forced three million dollars on them, ⁓ which in my opinion, ⁓ they and I always like to say they played Oprah with the money. They threw the money away ⁓ with a lot of grants

Wyatt Hanson (23:34) Okay. Okay.

Richard Egan (23:53) what they call them grants to people that really had no wolf impact. Basically you put in an application and they sent you a check and Wyatt and I and many others told him, Hey, you you guys are going to run out of money pretty quick if you're doing this like that. And they completely ignored the industry people and continue to do that because I think they just wanted to get the money out of there and be done with it because that was a pilot program. Well, when that pilot program ran out, like we ⁓ had told them it would,

Wyatt Hanson (24:06)

Richard Egan (24:22) the legislature then forced another ⁓ pot of money on them, which now the pendulum has swung the other way. And my understanding is they're basically hanging on tight to that $600,000 and haven't paid

Wyatt Hanson (24:32) Okay.

Richard Egan (24:36) for depredations since ⁓ maybe about a year ago. They haven't paid any. you ⁓ know, one, we'll get to solutions later on, but I think one of the solutions is to get the compensation ⁓ function

Wyatt Hanson (24:38)

Richard Egan (24:51) away from CDFW because their culture and their competence just isn't there to administer a program like that.

Perry Thompson (25:02) Yeah. Well, and why you just told us, in I was going to come back, you had your first kill over 13 months ago and you haven't been compensated for anything. Is that accurate?

Wyatt Hanson (25:10) Yes, that is true. Yep, that is accurate.

Perry Thompson (25:14) Holy cow, that is such a bullshit. ⁓ So yeah, we have plenty of funding to have, you know, hazing teams and yeah, so, but we're not getting the people that are being impacted, the money, they're being impacted at the most important level. ⁓ But I bet the paychecks for all the hazing teams are, I bet those cash every month or every week, I bet. So yeah, okay, so that's super interesting. I'm super sorry about that, Wyatt. Yeah, so Richard, thanks for kind of jumping in and talking about that. that three million, can you just talk about that three million in grants? Like give me an example of a ⁓ grant that was awarded that you know of and what, yeah.

Richard Egan (25:56) Ye- Yeah. Yeah, sure. So in 2022, the legislature, like I mentioned, kind of forced this pilot program onto the department, gave them $3 million to deal with compensation. And the department decided to do that in three different prongs, one being direct loss, like Wyatt's talking about, direct animals that were killed, one being deterrence, and the other being this pay for presence.

Wyatt Hanson (26:14) Okay. Okay. .

Richard Egan (26:31) ⁓ notion that we've all talked about that, you know, the economic impact of having wolves in your cattle, even if they're not, if they don't kill one, or if the kills are not detected is probably more, more accurate. So, and in my opinion, and I think a lot of other producers, they went about it completely backwards. They spent ⁓ almost 2 million of that on ⁓ non-lethal deterrent activities. which are all these crazy things that we, you know, they should have learned and we told them don't work. And there's been a long history in other States showing that range riding and putting up tin foil tinsel and, and things like that are not effective long-term deterrents, right? They might work for five minutes, but particularly out on the landscape where I graze, there's really no

Wyatt Hanson (27:12) Okay. Okay.

Richard Egan (27:27) effective non-lethal deterrence. but yet they were, you know, paying people to buy dogs and having night watchmen and all kinds of crazy things to the tune of $2 million, including people that had no wolf presence in their, in their area. So they blew through that money. That's the Oprah money. Then they spent out of that $3 million, I think they spent 135 or 40 on the direct loss.

Wyatt Hanson (27:41) Hmm.

Richard Egan (27:57) ⁓ out of the three million. The rest of it, ⁓ until they ran out, they'd used on the pay for presence for impacts that we all had, ⁓ you know, for having the wolves there. Which, and that part of the program actually, I think, ⁓ had some issues with how they determined where the wolves were and so forth. And they were very secretive about that information and continue to be.

Wyatt Hanson (28:23) Okay.

Richard Egan (28:24) But that was seemed like a more fair approach to ⁓ to compensating people for the loss. So that was the three million they ran out of that. And I think the department thought once that money was gone, they were done and they didn't have to do it. They published a report and then ⁓ went back to taking care of predators. And then ⁓ then the legislature this last year came up with another six hundred thousand. And I think they're true to form. They're kind of resisting. ⁓ getting that money out there where it belongs. And, you know, and one other thing that, and maybe we'll talk more about this is ⁓ they're using the confirmed numbers of kills in a lot of ⁓ statistical reporting and so forth. And in my view, that's just really a fraction of what's going on. ⁓ in the Sierra Valley episode that we had this last year, I think that it's really highlighted. And for people that don't understand the Sierra Valley situation, Sierra Valley is a relatively open, flat ⁓ area with a lot of cattle, a lot of roads, relative to the rest of the area where the wolves are. Really a lot of presence.

Perry Thompson (29:27) Thank

Wyatt Hanson (29:39)

Richard Egan (29:47) So it was highly visible what was going on. But in the rest of wolf habitat, like where Wyatt is and where my family grazes up on the Plumas and perhaps Siskiyou County, Modoc County, there's a lot of depredation and harassment that's going on that is completely undetected. Personally, myself, ⁓ We had several kills in 2020, 21, 22, and then, and all of them detected by caller data from, where the wolves were since, and they, the department kind of gave up on collaring the Lassen pack about two years ago. And surprise, surprise, we haven't had any confirmed kills because we don't know where they are. They're out on, you know, 75,000 acres. And you're just, you know, you're just not going to find them, but anyway. Sorry to ramble on

Perry Thompson (30:44) No, that's good. So I want you to elaborate on gave up on coloring the Lassam pack. So gave up because it's convenient and then we don't have to deal with this or literally the logistics of coloring were over.

Richard Egan (30:51) Sure. Yeah, and I don't want to attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. But I think there's a little bit of both going on with the department. ⁓ know, coloring is a specialty. It's not rocket science, but it's a specialty that is, you know, most efficiently done through trained

Wyatt Hanson (31:20) Okay.

Richard Egan (31:26) helicopter teams that go out and call her animals, right? And they call her deer and they call her elk and they call her, you know, every, every species you can think of. ⁓ But for a long time, the department, because someone got killed in a helicopter accident 50 years ago or something, they decided that the helicopters were not a good tool to use them. And they use that excuse for a long time to not ⁓ collar wolves and they tried ground trapping and they had some real limited success in ground trapping, but they did have some success, but wolves get smart ⁓ to those traps and they don't fall for it anymore. So a couple of years ago, they finally relented and began using ⁓ helicopters to collar these wolves. ⁓ they had some, the way they do that is they hire a contractor to do that and they come in and do it. But for example, with the Lassen pack, there hadn't been any callers on those wolves for quite a while. Last year there the extent of their effort to call her those wolves was one helicopter flight from the Susanville airport. They flew to Greenville, turned around and came back and gave up. They were it was literally a 30 minute effort. And that's just not, you know, that's not going to get it done. And so a lot of us have been advocating for them to do that. And the other thing about collaring that I'll just mention is once you have two collars on a pack, it's really easy to find them and put another collar on. So as long as you have two, when one fails, you can go collar another one and then you have that pack collar. And for some reason, they just don't seem to understand that math. I'm not a biologist, but... but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out. that's why, I think some of it is malice. I think some of us affected by the Lassen pack have been very vocal about the lack of competence with the department. I don't know if it's retaliation or just they don't want to hear from us. So they're focusing on other packs like the Sierra Valley pack or the Squaw pack. Hopefully that answered your question.

Perry Thompson (33:46) Wow. No, yeah, you did. Yeah, you did. Yeah, I mean, I just, I think about the money that we're spending and the energy that we're spending, you know, to track and color and, you know. It just seems like it's just so misdirected. ⁓ And you know, that 3 million and that 600,000, does anybody on this call have a feel for what the impact to the taxpayer that these programs have? I mean, really, I there, I'll bet you that there's not a clean category that all of this is being charged to that could be tracked very well.

Richard Egan (34:29) That's a really interesting point and again, and I hate to pick on the department all the time, but it's hard not to. ⁓ They are the most non-transparent agency, maybe second to corrections, but in the state there. It's very difficult to get any information out of them. And this is information that should be readily available. how they spent money and what they spent it on. You know, they claim that they have no money for years and years and years and they don't have legal authority to do things like what they did last summer. But then when the heat gets warm enough, they're able to dump several million dollars in Sierra Valley. So, yeah, I've made personally made public records requests to the department and they're very good at avoiding them. And yeah, I don't know.

Perry Thompson (35:30) Yeah. Okay. So John, don't you, can you share with us just a little bit about how, um, from the law enforcement side, just what, uh, effect Wolf, Wolves are having on, on just your day-to-day operations and you you have a, you have a huge County. Um, and this is, I know you really care about ranchers and you know, that is the way of life up here in Northeastern, uh, Northeastern California. So. Can you just talk to us a little bit about, you know, where your deputies are spending time and, ⁓ and some of the things that you guys are seeing and your deputies are seeing on the ground level.

John McGarva (36:07) So thank you. we kind of joked that this wasn't something that any of us thought we would be doing. When I took over as sheriff, I joked with Richard about this all the time. If I had known I'd have been the game warden too, I think I would have thought about it. He goes, well, I just wouldn't have told you. it's really occupied way more of our time than we ever thought it could. Between having to.

Richard Egan (36:25) You

John McGarva (36:36) either field the calls or respond. And I do most of this myself because my deputies have plenty going on. So when these come in, I generally deal with them myself. We've joined in the effort of starting to DNA these wolves that Sierra County had done forever. Now we're taking DNA samples and we're storing evidence that we didn't traditionally ever store before. We're now responding to these things. For the first time ever, the state sheriff's association has stood up a wildlife conflict committee because of the wildlife issues. And then it's not just wolves. Obviously we have mountain lions and bears across the state that have been an issue as well. But for us here in Lassen County, I mean, it's really occupying, it's been occupying easily 20 to 25 % of my time and effort, if not more, because I have a lot of travel time to Sacramento where I went to a lot of meetings to basically like Richard talked about, get sold a. a bill of goods on what the efforts are. And when you ask for any kind of additional information or transparency, you know, we get told, well, we can't tell you that because it's detrimental to the wolf, which is bizarre to me because I don't get to say that in a public records act request. ⁓ You know, trying to track these wolves themselves, you know, getting them collared is an effort in itself. And obviously the Lassen pack has almost no collars on it where, you know, we have the Harvey pack and there's, there's at least six packs that directly affect the Lassen County area. that we've had to now track and go through those things. And I talked to, you know, at least every couple of weeks, I'm talking to the trapper about, you know, what's happened next. Our numbers are somewhere. And I think this is probably a little light, but we have, you know, 42 confirmed kills this year and 45, you know, with 45 total that we believe are probable. I believe the numbers higher, but a lot of these like Wyatt had alluded to, there's not a lot, not enough left to test. There's nothing you can't test. What's not there. There's so decimated the carcasses. that we can't even get a DNA sample. There's nothing to take. So really it's become a constant. It's rare when I'm not, at least at some point, two, three times a week addressing an issue with the gray wolf in Lassen County. And it's become a ⁓ real occupier of my time. And I don't mind doing it. think from a public safety standpoint that if we don't start addressing these things, We're going to start seeing things like Siskiyou County just declared a public safety emergency because they had one within a half mile of the school that was hanging around there. I don't think we're far from those issues in Lassen County. We've had them hanging around ranches for a long time. They're out in the daylight now. We had one that was down by Honey Lake that was hanging out down there. then eventually, of course, what happens, we have a kill down there. Obviously the Willow Creek Valley, they now have a pack to themselves. They have the Tunisian pack that's sitting out just outside their back door. You know, Richard's dealing with the last impact on the plume aside. have, you know, Ashpan pack and Harvey pack and all these things that directly affect Lassen County. So we're spending a lot of time managing. A predator, you know, and, which has taken, wouldn't say taking us away, but definitely has revised our priorities on what we're going to deal with from a law enforcement standpoint. And these are things that, ⁓ traditionally we're not our role. We hadn't had much of a. of a role in this until it started to affect the public safety aspect. And at this point, now I'm in, I mean, now that we're in, we're in, you for a penny and for a pound. So we we're working hard to address this issue. I'll be attending a stakeholder meeting tomorrow in Sacramento regarding, you know, gray wolves and where they're at and really trying to push them to move out their wolf plan from phase two to phase three so we can start treating them like the mountain lion and. the bears that are public safety issues. We can start working those things in. And really that's been our push in our lobby at the state level. I've joined, you know, probably a dozen other sheriffs and there's three of us that sit on the committee that are constantly in Fish and Wildlife's ear about pushing these things forward. Excuse me. ⁓ It's really been a solid occupier of most of my year this year. I've spent a lot of time ⁓ dealing with gray wolves either reviewing instance, talking to Trapper, and it is a big county. I wish I could respond to every single one, but it's difficult to do that. But we are taking evidence off of them now, and because of the DNA testing is not reliable. Or they tell us that, it's not conclusive. Well, we can send it to this lab, and it says it is. And then they try and dispute the findings of that lab. They're spending more money trying to prove it's not than just saying, OK, it is.

Perry Thompson (41:19) So there's so many questions I have from that, but I'm going to try and... So a couple things. One, just an observance, this common sense observance is the explosion of your time and your resources. And again, just contrast that for just a few years ago versus what's happening. And then, you know, every one of these wolves have seven to 10 pups every year.

Richard Egan (41:36) Thank

Perry Thompson (41:48) And this we're talking about, it's not a linear curve. It's an exponential curve that's happening right now. And just look at how practices from your law enforcement group has changed just in a few years to where this is occupying a significant amount of time. If this continues unchecked, it's gonna be overwhelming for all of these rural law enforcement agencies. And not to mention, the ranchers, that their livelihoods depend on this. And so I guess what I'm most confused about, John and everybody on this call, is what is the overwhelming force that's driving this wolf untouchable mindset? Like we just can't... transition to any type of lethal activity or real management, if this continues unchecked like it's going, it's gonna be ugly. What is it, kids are gonna have to start getting killed by these things before it matters? mean, why are we not recognizing this? And then where is the same empathy for these people that are animal lovers? Okay, I get that. All of us are conservationists. Nobody wants animals killed. Nobody is here saying, But where is the same empathy for deer and elk and heifers and cattle? Where is that empathy? So you're in Fish and Wildlife's ear. Can you explain what your perception is of why those things don't matter, but everything wolf does matter? That's what the disconnect for me is.

John McGarva (43:26)Well, the information they're putting out is, in my view, slanted to say the least. So when they talk about deer is a good example, right? Anybody that is a outdoorsman or a hunter knows that the deer population is down, and it's down drastically. I'm a deer hunter myself, and last time I was able to hunt was a few years ago, and ⁓ I didn't see a deer, a legal buck the entire season, which was a zone that normally I'm pretty successful in.

Perry Thompson (43:42) Yep. Yes. Yep.

John McGarva (43:56) They, know, they, instead of crediting it to predators, they credit it to wasting disease or some kind of internal issue with the deer herds or poor reproduction rates. They don't want, they, they, they push the numbers to where they show that it's not, it's not the predators. And that's, that's, they're really their standpoint. Their standpoint on the gray wolf is that this is an epic resurgence of an extinct species. Keyword there is extinct. California gray wolf went extinct in 1929. The last one actually was killed in Lassen County. This is a Canadian gray wolf. By all size and comparison is larger, more aggressive, different type of animal than what was in California. And that was not a resurgence. This was an introduction by all involved know that this was a migration and introduction into California. This was not a... this epic resurgence of a species that the Fish and Wildlife Department is claiming. And then where they want to hang their hat, and that's where this gets really frustrating in a lot of times, especially from a law enforcement standpoint, is when it comes to accountability, you're able to point to it, right? There's a law, there's a statute. Well, right now we have fingers pointing both directions. We have the state saying that it's the federal laws that are not allowing this. The feds are saying the state's managing this. And quite frankly, it is the state that's managing this for the most part. When the feds get involved, it's usually, especially under the current administration, it's been handled fairly swiftly and fairly quickly, which has ruffled some feathers at the state level that I've experienced. That's what their hangup is. They're doing everything they can. And that's why the advocacy groups aren't involved when it comes to deer and elk, because they're being told that that's not, the predators aren't killing them some natural phenomenon is. And some of that's probably true. There is some probably some disease and stuff that goes on.

Perry Thompson (45:32) Thank

John McGarva (45:50) That's not the majority of it. I mean, the picture we go back to is in Sierra County, you that elk that was killed on that doorstep. And those pictures were very telling. That clearly was not wasting disease. That was very clearly an attack and a kill on someone's doorstep. But they even tried to blame the homeowner for that saying that they weren't doing enough to deter the elk from coming into there or the deer from coming in there. They ⁓ shift the responsibility to anything but the predator. And that's...

Perry Thompson (45:52) Yeah.

John McGarva (46:18) That's the frustrating part of this is that just the lack of accountability. There's way more wolves than they want to admit to. According to the statistics, the average is for every collared wolf, there's three to five with it. And I'm sure Richard could correct me if I'm off on some of these. And then you already hit the litter amounts for each litter they have, and those can be more than once a year. So there's plenty of wolves at this point. There's no reason they can't push to the next phase where this can be handled. It's just a reluctance to do so. Even the advocacy groups, when it came to Sierra Valley said, that's not what any of us had in mind. And they're looking at a regime change with a new director and everything else coming in in January. I don't think it's going to change the philosophy of the department any, but that's where they're hanging their hat. It's the blame shift and it's nothing new. Richard and Wyatt have been dealing with it for a lot longer than I have as the sheriff. But at this point,

Perry Thompson (46:56) Thank

John McGarva (47:14) They don't even want to admit that there's a public safety element here. They try to deny that at all costs because they know at that point, that's what got the sheriffs involved. And that's where we're having to address these issues that traditionally you're right. We're not ours. When you talk about comparison, you know, three years ago, this wasn't on our radar. This was something we were aware of, but really was a traditionally efficient wildlife issue that we really had very little involvement in from a law enforcement standpoint, because it was happening out on the ranges and the kill rates were not I don't know if they weren't reported as high. And I don't know if that's because the numbers never got to us or the information was different. I'm not sure. But I can tell you this, we're definitely more involved in the information now and very active. mean, we're now having monthly meetings with Fish and Wildlife that we didn't used to have because of these issues, because we've had to bring a voice to this. And I have no problem rattling the saber on the right topic. And this is one of them. This is something that becomes a safety issue because You know, it's still someone's property. You know, we talked to someone the other day at a meeting, my wife and I were there. And the equivalent is, is what if someone reached in your wallet and took, you know, three to five grand out of your wallet? How do you feel about that or more? Well, now it, and then you see people, the clearly, you know, you see the information click like, okay. And then there is the, you know, then there's just the threat of presence themselves. You these are a pack animal. I've seen videos of them charging at vehicles, charging at different things.

Perry Thompson (48:26) Right. Right.

John McGarva (48:41) This is not something that's gonna end cleanly if this continues.

Richard Egan (48:47) And you know, Perry, I think your question's a little bit rhetorical about, you know, why do people have this such affinity for wolves but not other species? And, you know, from my perspective, at least, I think it's, a lot of it's based on misinformation that, ⁓ and also just some kind of irrational emotion that they, you know, that the wolves are viewed as this, ⁓know, magical creature that's going to somehow balance the ecosystem in California. And, you know, John mentioned this is a different wolf that was here back a hundred years ago. But a lot has changed in California in that hundred years. I think there was, you know, a couple of million people in California back when that wolf was killed. And now we're approaching 40 million and we've got highways and we've got airplanes and we've got, you know, all sorts of different things that are conflicting. with these animals. so trying to understand the psychology is probably maybe for another podcast, I guess, we could spend a lot of time on that. But the legal hurdle is that ⁓ the wolves are now protected both federally and state, as we know through the ESA. I don't think you could find a legitimate credible biologist that isn't owned by the environmental groups. that would suggest that this species is endangered or threatened. There's thousands and thousands of these in just the lower 48 states and ⁓ many, many more in Canada, North Alaska, and so forth. And so the time I think has really come to acknowledge that there's really no reasonable definition of endangered or threatened. would ⁓ fit this species and manage them accordingly.

Perry Thompson (50:48) Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. so, yeah, that was a really good point, Richard. Thank you. And then can you also touch on kind of the changes that have happened to, you know, my son is a hunter. loves hunting. And I have a friend that used to bear hunt a lot and, know, slowly over the last decade, you can no longer use dogs to hunt bears, for example.

Wyatt Hanson (51:13) Okay.

Perry Thompson (51:15) Bobcats, I think you can't hunt anymore at all. Can you just kind of elaborate just on this kind of lead

Wyatt Hanson (51:21) Okay.

Perry Thompson (51:22) with predator protection? And again, this is that the deer and elk, like they don't matter. So I'm just, it's bigger than just the wolf. It's predators in general, right? And now the tip of the spear is wolves. So, but can you talk a little bit about that for us?

Richard Egan (51:40) Yeah. Sure. we deal, you know, Wyatt and I deal with these other predators as well in our cattle herds. And the bear population particularly has just grown exponentially after the restriction that dogs can no longer be used to hunt them. And so, but the bear cattle conflict is a little different than the wolf cattle conflict. know, bears typically will you know, come in and they can decimate ⁓ baby calves, know, young calves that are, you know, maybe under a month old. But typically after, you know, cattle are, you know, up and of that age where they can move around, the bears don't harass them that much. And so, you know, for that reason, a lot of us, when we go up to the forest with our cattle, we only take cattle that are of that age and they can kind of deal with that.

Wyatt Hanson (52:19) Yay. Yay.

Richard Egan (52:38) But there's a lot of bears up there and there is still some depredation. know, mountain lions also, and by the way, with bears, if we do have a conflict issue, although the department has been increasingly making it difficult to get permits, there is a process to allow for permits to take bears that are harassing and killing cattle. Same thing with mountain lions. But mountain lions, again, ⁓ you know, there's exceptions to the rule, but typically aren't going to be after those larger animals. If they are, mountain lions are solitary hunters. They're not going to come in and wipe out a bunch. They might kill one and you'd find one. Unless you're in the sheep business, then you might have 50. ⁓ But typically they're not as much of a problem up on the forest because of the age of the animals up there and the nature of the way they hunt. compared to wolves. And if we do have a problem, there is at least a mechanism to try to deal with it. Wolves, there is none.

Perry Thompson (53:48) Okay, okay, that was great, thank you. All right, so John, you talked a little bit about, hey, we're in phase two, we need to move to phase three. Can you just talk a little bit about what that looks like and what you think it's gonna take to get us over that hump?

Wyatt Hanson (54:03) Okay. Yep.

John McGarva (54:08) You know, that's some of the questions we're going to have tomorrow at this meeting is that we're going to try and figure out what it is they want to see before we take that. They base it a lot on, on mating pairs and, and per pack and what they can track and what they can't. ⁓ you know, as we talked about already, this, statistical numbers show that there should meet the sixth, you know, first it was four, then it was six. Now it's eight. ⁓ the goalpost moves pretty often on what they want to see in order to. to make that happen.

Wyatt Hanson (54:34)

John McGarva (54:35) And that's what they base it on is the mating pairs. Honestly, they have more than enough. If they're able to expand the amount of packs, I mean, we have packs from Siskiyou County to Tulare County at this point. So there's I think there's more than enough evidence to show that there's enough to move to that next phase where we can take action in a public safety standpoint. Or if we are having an issue where we're having, you know, say wolves hanging around, you know, Wyatt's property and they're starting to become a threat. then maybe we can do those, then we can take action and move on to those things. They're still being pushed at the federal level to try and delist. We're working with our congressmen and those things on trying to get the wolves delisted through the Fish and Wildlife Service. It's obviously always an uphill battle because they did this in 2022. They were actually delisted, then it immediately got an injunction from an activist group in a lawsuit. this is always...

Wyatt Hanson (55:17) Do. ⁓

John McGarva (55:29) You know, the put the goal is to get them delisted because they really shouldn't be. There's I believe over 10,000 is considered the population of the gray wolves are starting to move into Colorado now, including us. And there's really no justification in a lot of people's minds to show that this is still an endangered species. So the fact of the matter is, is the push is, is we have to be able to show or make them show, you know, prove why there's not enough to move them to the next phase. That's going to be some of the discussion tomorrow because.

Wyatt Hanson (55:45) Okay. Okay.

John McGarva (55:58): You know, there's been a lot of research done on these. UC Davis has done quite a bit. They've done several presentations for our local ranching community in several counties. They can show that there's more than enough, but the data is not, they're not accepting of the data. They're saying that the data is skewed or it's flawed or that's not what their research shows. And that's part of the transparency when Richard talks about PRAs and different things. That's why they don't want to let... information out because they feel like that if we know how many are out there, then we can we can we know how to take the proper action and how to deal with that. Plus, it's harder to defend once the numbers get out. But right now, I don't think they know how many there are. And that's part of the problem.

Richard Egan (56:38) And Yeah. And, and you know, there's, mean, think it's important to maybe just ⁓ drill down on, the process a little bit, because you've got a couple of things going on. You've got the federal endangered species list. You've got the state endangered species list and act, and you've got the California wolf plan. Now, I think there's some debate to be had about this, but, the state could adopt a wolf plan that allows for

Perry Thompson (56:45) Yeah.

Wyatt Hanson (56:47) you .

Richard Egan (57:13) ⁓ you know, the type of management

Wyatt Hanson (57:14) Okay.

Richard Egan (57:14) that John and others are mentioning. But if that plan was deemed to be in conflict with either the state or the Federal Endangered Species Act, ⁓ it may not be implementable. so I think it's really important to note that in order to have any meaningful change in the management of the species, there has to be a change to both. the Federal Endangered Species Act or delisting

Wyatt Hanson (57:42) Okay.

Richard Egan (57:44) or a change to the State Endangered Species Act or delisting at the state level. ⁓ Because the management plan, as important as it could be, is going to be subject, I think, to those restrictions that are in the ESA.

Wyatt Hanson (57:44)

Perry Thompson (58:03) Well, Richard, know that delisting is like a snowball's chance in hell. So realistically, where does that really leave us with solutions?

Richard Egan (58:11) Yeah. Well, on the federal level, yeah, and I think, the consensus is that it's going to be difficult to impossible to get done, but there is potentially a vote maybe as early as today in Congress regarding that Livestock Pet Safety Act, which would would take care of the federal part of it. I think you're right at the state level. ⁓ even though the data doesn't support listing, the ⁓ irrational emotion that prevails in Sacramento is probably going to ⁓ make it remain listed for the foreseeable future. And which kind of leads us into the way that ⁓ the state and feds were able to lethally take the four wolves in Sierra Valley. And that's kind of an interesting discussion too. I don't know if you

Wyatt Hanson (58:51) Okay.

Richard Egan (59:07) how deep you want to get into that. But the way they were able to do that is really quite interesting.

Perry Thompson (59:14) Yeah, so go ahead and elaborate on that for us, Richard.

Richard Egan (59:17) Sure, sure. So, ⁓ essentially the federal Endangered Species Act and the state Endangered Species Act ⁓ contain language that says you can't lethally take or harass or any of these endangered species unless there is a demonstrable threat to public safety. And nothing to do with livestock. The wolves could kill every every cow in California and that would not be a reason to take the wolves. But if there's this demonstrable threat to human safety, then wolves can be managed essentially. so the way, and let me back up just a little bit. Because they're protected by both the state and the federal ESA, there's a memorandum of understanding between the state and

Wyatt Hanson (1:00:11) Okay. .

Richard Egan (1:00:13) the feds and that basically says that the state has the responsibility and authority to manage the species. ⁓ My understanding is, and I haven't read the whole thing, it's probably a thousand pages long. That MOU doesn't really specifically deal with the situation that happened in Sierra Valley. And so both ⁓ the state attorneys and the federal attorneys ⁓

Wyatt Hanson (1:00:32) Okay. .

Richard Egan (1:00:43) decided that in order to take any action, both agencies had to come up with independent findings of this demonstrable threat to human safety. And then if they did so, then they could take action. And that's what they did. ⁓ In my opinion, ⁓ they got bullied into doing that and they, they did the right thing for the wrong reasons. They didn't kill those wolves in Sierra Valley because they because they killed a hundred cattle. They were able to make those findings because there were wolves near a school and near people's backyards and things like that. So there's really no legal mechanism to deal with livestock

Wyatt Hanson (1:01:25) Give it up.

Richard Egan (1:01:31) conflict. despite the press releases that they made detailing all the livestock kills and so forth, that had nothing to do with why they were able to manage those walls down there. And I think that remains the challenge. ⁓ Like I mentioned before in Sierra Valley, got, you know, relatively a lot of people, you got a lot of traffic, you got a lot of cameras ⁓ that, you know, forced them into making that decision up at Lone Rock and out at Willow Creek and ⁓ Antelope Lake and other areas.

Perry Thompson (1:02:07) Mm-hmm.

Richard Egan (1:02:10) ⁓ they're not going to fall for that. They're not going to make that finding that there's a threat to public safety, despite the fact that they're killing just as many cattle. And frankly, they're probably just as much of a threat to somebody at camping at Antelope Lake as they were in Sierra Valley. ⁓ So anyway, that I think remains the challenge is finding a way to manage these wolves ⁓ for cattle depredation.

Wyatt Hanson (1:02:32) Okay. Okay.

Richard Egan (1:02:40) and other livestock and pets.

John McGarva (1:02:43) think to Richard's point, you if I may, think that's exactly right. think that's what made Sierra Valley unique was its topography and everything was in that bowl of the Valley and right on top of each other. And it was just a constant basis. I think that's where we

Perry Thompson (1:02:44) Yeah.

Richard Egan (1:02:50) Mm-hmm.

John McGarva (1:02:58) have struggled in, show and getting them to see our case here in Lassen County is this, just the distance in between everything, just the fact that we have such a large area that is being covered. Like Richard said, we're, we're experiencing the same problem. We just have more space to spread it out over. And I think they're using that as a reason to not jump in and do these things. And he's absolutely right. they, this was never about the livestock. This was pressure and this was the public safety portion of it that got this force through. And really until the fed stepped in, this was going to continue, I believe at the state level, they were not in a hurry to address this problem.

Richard Egan (1:03:19) Yeah.

Wyatt Hanson (1:03:32)

Richard Egan (1:03:37) Yeah, and just to kind of put it in numerical perspective a little bit, I think there were rough, you know, give or take a hundred ⁓ confirmed cattle depredations in Sierra Valley over that period of time, ⁓ spread across maybe 20 ranches or so. There a lot of cattle in that valley. But if you average that out, maybe that's

Perry Thompson (1:03:37) Yeah.

Richard Egan (1:03:58) five or 10 depredations per ranch, ⁓ which is less than the Hansons are experiencing in Willow Creek. ⁓ yet yet, ⁓ director Bonham, you know, sent the cavalry to Sierra Valley with every fish and wildlife ⁓ agent. could muster and millions and millions of dollars and essentially abandon the rest of the state wolf issue for at least that period of time for the last six or eight months.

Perry Thompson (1:04:07) Right. Yeah.

Wyatt Hanson (1:04:29) Yeah, all of our kills are within one fence line of our homes, our corrals, our working areas, our barns. ⁓ So it just goes to show that, you know, they're of course just like over there and many other places in the state that they're they they didn't mind people. You know, I know it's a small presence, small people presence, but it's my family's presence. You know, so of course to us, it is a public safety issue. It's a family safety issue for us. And at that, speaking to some of it, in Oregon, they do have a federally delisted zone. And I know that some folks are looking at that and working at that, but there should be a federally delisted zone in the northeast corner of the state. And the state should look at the same thing as a state delisted zone. And I don't know how that's done. I'm not. not on the government side, but certainly it seems that at least there's some more mechanisms and tools that can be used when that's the case. And I know some folks are looking at that. I think that should be seriously looked at.

Richard Egan (1:05:40): You know, and another point, Perry, you a lot of people are making the Sierra Valley episode out to be a really unique and unusual ⁓ situation. And, you know, from my perspective, and I think probably Wyatt and John's as well, ⁓ these are just wolves being wolves. They're no different than the wolves that are in Westwood or in, ⁓ you know, in Willow Creek or any of the other areas.

Perry Thompson (1:05:40) Yeah.

Richard Egan (1:06:09) they're, they're just highly visible and they had the opportunity over there with a concentrated area of cattle to do what wolves do. And I think it's, you know, it's, it's crazy to think that, and like some of the, the, ⁓ groups will tell you, you know, this was just a unique situation and you know, if things had been done differently, they wouldn't have become habituated and that sort of thing. I, I will call that out for what it is, which is nonsense. These are just wolves doing what wolves do.

Perry Thompson (1:06:38) Yeah. Yeah. I would say Sierra, the Sierra Valley is just a leading indicator of what's to come everywhere. Right. And it's just, was a more visual place ⁓ to have it happen. Yeah. Which is what that's the advantage, the disadvantage that where we are. ⁓ So Wyatt, tell me if, if trying to have a reasonable proposal as a rancher on the ground.

Wyatt Hanson (1:06:42) Okay.

Richard Egan (1:06:44) Mm-hmm.

Perry Thompson (1:07:06) If I could do X, what would X be to have you feel like you could ⁓ sleep better at night and manage your herds better? Is lethality, I basically I can kill them, is that the only option? there something that like, can you just, I kind of wanted to hear from you on what your thoughts were on that.

Wyatt Hanson (1:07:31) Yeah, we have a small pack, ⁓ the Tunisian pack. And like I said, they can be fairly elusive. You don't see them. ⁓ They work at times when they watch you and they know that you're gone and you're not watching. And I think that with these problem animals, problem packs like the one in Sierra Valley, there has to be some lethal control. isn't every other state, as far as I know, that has has wolves. And without that tool, they certainly are not afraid of some of the more extreme hazing mechanisms. You know, we've tried fladgery. We've had the box, the scare boxes, ⁓ had lights. We do the range riding. We go out at night, go out in morning ⁓ multiple times. And it's just very frustrating when it seems as those tools do not work. And we've certainly seen that. And I know that we're not going to fix. They're not going to go away. I understand that. And to an extent, that's that's fine. I mean, that's what it's going to be. But I just think that without some lethal control like they had in Sierra Valley, like they had up in Oregon, just in Lake County, I think it was a year or two ago. I think that wolf had eight depredations and it was considered a a nuisance. And they took that wolf. And in my perspective here in Willow Creek, we have nine confirmed kills of a small pack like this. I have neighbors who have had kills. I don't know the exact number of all of them, but I certainly think that that would be the threshold for taking an animal like this. We're a smaller valley. Again, we don't have as many people, but we certainly have enough ranches and enough human presence around these animals. that I think in this instance lethal control should and probably if it was a tool the state could use, I think that they actually would probably act. But maybe that's the ⁓ optimistic side of me to think that they would if they were able to have that tool.

Perry Thompson (1:09:56) So John, we went from phase one, ⁓ which is do nothing, to phase two. Can you elaborate on what phase three really means if we get to it?

John McGarva (1:10:15) You know... I mean, basically it means that we can treat them like a mountain lion or a black bear. If they're a public safety threat, gives us a mechanism in order to address a threat. Even I can even issue a public safety order on a mountain lion. If it's attacking, you know, enough livestock or enough, if it's close enough, like what, it's dealing with up there. If that was a mountain lion, that would be a non-issue. could just, you know, say here's the, here's the track record of kills. Here's what we need to, here's what's going to happen. And I'm going to go ahead and declare it a threat. I could do that with those animals under the Fish and Game Code. have that authority. That's what phase three really looks like is our ability to manage that and be able to at least assist those who I'm elected to represent and protect their safety. gives me a mechanism to do it legally. Now there are some other mechanisms in the law currently, which allows that Richard elaborated on the Code of Federal Regulations that talks about the You know, the demonstrable but not immediate threat to human safety. That was the wolf in Lake County, Oregon that they, they killed. And that's backed up by case law and people versus Wallin out of Montana, which dealt with the grizzly bear that's on the endangered species list. shows that if it's a threat, can't threat to human state or public safety. can be taken out under certain circumstances. That's where we're held up with the wolves is the other dual protections. And there's, they don't have that opening in the law. Now, obviously. That's what we want to get to with phase three is at least have the ability to deal with it. The wolves aren't going anywhere and we are why it's elaborated to it. They're here to stay. There's nothing we're never going to, we're not going to get them out of here and you know, killing them all is not really an option. That's not really viable or really realistic in that manner. They're here, but we have to have a way to be able to manage them and get them at least deter them away from human contact and away from these things and seeing them as a threat. or not safe to go after. And right now there's no deterrent for them. That's why we're seeing them during the day. That's why they're openly going after cattle during the day, especially in Sierra Valley and then up where, everywhere in Lassen

Wyatt Hanson (1:12:21) Okay.

John McGarva (1:12:23) County, they're still seeing them. We had one down in the southern part of the county near Honey Lake. That was an open daylight. There's no deterrent. They're not afraid of humans or anything about humans right now. Phase three would at least give us the ability to deal with them in a more... ⁓

Wyatt Hanson (1:12:27)

John McGarva (1:12:39) a more serious manner, whether it's lethal or do the things we need to do to get them out. And until they see have a healthy fear of human contact or at least see it as a deterrent, they're going to continue. They're emboldening. They're going to continue to do wolf things because there's nothing stopping them to doing them at all hours.

Richard Egan (1:12:56) And the other thing, ⁓ and maybe it's Pollyannish to think that the department could embrace modern technology, at least under the current leadership or probably the next leadership. But there's plenty of technology that's coming out that might ⁓ be beneficial to both the wolves and us as producers. ⁓ Wyatt and I both are

Perry Thompson (1:12:56) Yeah.

Richard Egan (1:13:26) in the process of ⁓ exploring and doing some pilot projects with virtual fencing for our cattle, where the cattle with a collar on their neck will be kind of like a shot collar on your dog ⁓ will be bound through some fencing. maybe that's not today or tomorrow, but maybe in the next few years, if the department would embrace modern technology and some innovation, could find some way to collar these things and keep them bound in certain areas. And I don't think you'd have to do, for example, an entire pack. If you were able to keep the alpha male and female of a given pack in a certain area, then the rest of the pack's going to remain nearby. you don't see any.

Wyatt Hanson (1:14:23) Yeah.

Richard Egan (1:14:23) anybody in the department or anybody at the state level, even entertaining these types of ideas, they philosophically, I think, want the rest of the world to adjust to the wolves and have no compromise in terms of wolf management. But I think there's opportunity there to do it if they got the right leadership.

Perry Thompson (1:14:46) Well, and Richard, you have a good point on the last podcast I had about wolves. ⁓ Jessica was talking about a wolf kill report she was reading. And I don't want to misquote it because I'm not an expert on this, but I believe she was saying that 95 % of the kills at that particular report that she was reading were on private land. And does that sound accurate to you?

Wyatt Hanson (1:14:53) All private ⁓

Richard Egan (1:15:07) Yeah. I think it's all over the place. Out of my ⁓ five kills, I think four were on private land and one was on public land. Hanson's probably are mostly private, well, private. So yeah, a lot of, know, and I don't know if that's, I don't know why that is, but it does seem to be more private than public. In my case, it's private timberland, but.

Perry Thompson (1:15:20)Yeah. Yeah. Well, in a minute. Yeah, well, and it might be like on the BLM grazes and those things that is probably more difficult to have a confirmed kill up there because the damn thing is just missing, right? You can't find it. You know, it's not, you know, why it's able to ride every morning and check, you know, on this private land. But if you're, it's a little harder on the large graze leases and stuff. But the reality is getting back to your point, right, is that if we figured out, you know, ⁓ things that work like that,

Richard Egan (1:15:37) Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Perry Thompson (1:16:01) ⁓ And you're basically trying to deter them and keep them more on the forested lands that's not privately owned and that ranchers are operating on, right? That's the goal. So it doesn't seem like an unreasonable proposal.

Richard Egan (1:16:11) Right. Right. Yeah, and you know, in the Plumas, and think the Lassen National Forest is very similar, and the BLM's probably not far behind them, there's an enormous number of vacant grazing allotments on these forests for a variety of reasons. Let the wolves go live up there all they want. I mean, they're going to have to eat jackrabbits and mice, because there's no deer left.

Wyatt Hanson (1:16:24) Okay. you

Perry Thompson (1:16:34) Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, well,

John McGarva (1:16:43) Well, I think that's the other issue as well. I think that's the other issue as well is when they've tested the scat off of these wolves, it's 70%, 80 % beef. mean, they've really habituated themselves to eating cattle at this point. And that's science that you can't deny. I mean, that is an actual number that we've found. So now they're here to stay in there. That's probably why they're staying closer to these allotments or the private lands, because that's where the meals are.

Perry Thompson (1:16:45) go ahead Wyatt, sorry.

Wyatt Hanson (1:16:46): Okay.

Perry Thompson (1:16:49) Don't jump.

Richard Egan (1:16:55) It is.

John McGarva (1:17:11) And let's face it, jackrabbits, deer, elk, they're a little faster than cattle, so it's an easier target too.

Perry Thompson (1:17:19) Yeah, much tastier meal. The animals are basically sitting ducks. They're fenced in. I mean, it doesn't get much easier for that. And then it's just a very plentiful meal and plenty of it. And nobody's doing anything to deter that. So why would, if you're

Wyatt Hanson (1:17:25) Okay. Okay.

Perry Thompson (1:17:37) a wolf, why would you not? Why would you not? So, okay, well, we're kind of reaching the timeframe where, you know, we need to let people get back to work, but. Is there anything that we're missing here that we definitely should have covered that we haven't covered, guys?

Richard Egan (1:17:55) So from my perspective, and I mentioned the misinformation that I think leads to a lot of the irrational emotional fantasy with the wolves, I would just tell people, check the sources. ⁓ When you see on social media

Wyatt Hanson (1:18:03) Okay.

Richard Egan (1:18:15) oftentimes all these magical things that the wolves do, it's not real. The real world is very, different.

Wyatt Hanson (1:18:18) Okay. Okay.

Richard Egan (1:18:24) Even the experts in quotes that are, you know, owned by Center for Biological Diversity and other groups ⁓ are very suspect. It's not the real world. If you want to see the real world, go out and look at it with your own eyes. It's not what's being portrayed.

Perry Thompson (1:18:46) Yeah. Yeah. You know, in the last podcast, Richard, we were talking about, you know, awareness and, and, uh, the highway 97 video where those, uh, are you guys familiar with that highway? And where it was just people were kind of videoing these wolves and like, you know, they're kind of watching them and, and then just almost the, um, the complete surprise and a little bit of shock that they're like, wait, oh, wow, they're chasing cattle. Oh, oh my God. You know, and then, uh,

Richard Egan (1:18:58) Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Perry Thompson (1:19:13) I'm just, I mean, it's horrific. I proposed it last time on that podcast, but I really thought a lot about it. I feel like there should be a, this is messed up and Wyatt, I'm sorry that I'm even advocating this because that's your fan. It's like your family members, but a really well done drone video of killing, ⁓ of killing cattle needs to be produced and needs to be released.

Wyatt Hanson (1:19:26) Okay. you

Richard Egan (1:19:36) Mm-hmm.

Perry Thompson (1:19:41) You know, it sounds like these things are just majestic and they, you know, and, know, they are, they're, beautiful creatures. And I'm not, this isn't a wolf hate thing, but the reality is, is they aren't, they aren't the original California wolf. They're, they're ⁓ an imposter that is a wolf that was never here. They're bigger. ⁓ they, they are much, ⁓ you know, I the research I did was that, you know, the original California wolves are more solitary. These are.

Wyatt Hanson (1:19:53)

Perry Thompson (1:20:11) killing machines and they're really incredibly efficient. They're getting better and better. They're highly intelligent and the killing is going to continue to go up with the explosion of birth rates that are happening. ⁓ And we need to start educating people now on what the death that they bring looks like. And I mean, as horrific as this is, even say out loud.

Richard Egan (1:20:14) Mm-hmm.

Perry Thompson (1:20:42) ⁓ I don't want the video to be, it needs to be cattle now before it's children later. And I know that sounds extreme and a lot of people are like, no, that'll never happen. ⁓ Are you sure? Because look at what's happened over the last three years. We went from the sheriff basically going, not even really on our radar, to him basically saying,

Wyatt Hanson (1:20:50) Until it does.

Perry Thompson (1:21:07) I get two, three calls a week and I'm personally handling this because my deputies are already overwhelmed. They don't need this on the plate. And at some point, I love you, John, but you got a huge county to cover and there's only one of you buddy. So we got to figure out a, something that basically puts the shock and awe out there of the real world. We were talking on the last podcast, even on Facebook, you know, you have to click like multiple times to even view the kill. Right? It's just they don't everything is so suppressed and yes, I recognize, you know, it's not a pretty picture, but if it's not a But it's the truth and so we got to get we've got to get that out there So, I don't know any other last-minute ideas besides Perry's crazy video video option that we that might be effective

Richard Egan (1:21:34) Mm-hmm.

Wyatt Hanson (1:21:35) Yeah.

Richard Egan (1:21:53) You

Wyatt Hanson (1:21:58) Well, I certainly, I hope that, you know, we do live in a wonderful part of the country and, you know, we're all, all of us here, generations in this business. and in this area. I certainly just, I hope, and again, I know that this is hopefully not wishful thinking that the state will take some steps to help us a little bit more. And again, I really think by having a delisted zone and having some federal help to maybe get us there and have lethal control. as a tool that the state can use, certainly would go a long way. And I just, hope that somebody at the state can hear that and we'll try to help.

Perry Thompson (1:22:52) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, ⁓ we, the, the impacts and the depredations are growing at an exponential level. And if we don't figure out how to get in front of this, it's going to get away from us really fast. I feel like it's already gotten away from us. really do. And why I'm so grateful that you were on this podcast, buddy. I, and I'm super sorry about what you have dealt with as a family and as a ranch and as a business owner. ⁓ I'm just, so sorry for what you've dealt with and thank you for sharing your story with us. John, thank you for, you know, spending the time with us here today, just to say, Hey, this is a, this is a big, big impact, even on law enforcement and my hands are tied and there's very little I could do, but I really want to commend you for being on, on those committees and being in the department's ear and really trying to be at the forefront of solutions. And, ⁓ you know, I can't imagine the time. that that takes and all the conflicting priorities that you have to deal with as a sheriff. God bless you for being on the front of this and really trying to, ⁓ come up with solutions and, understanding that it starts with changing at the policy level and the legislative level. You know, I mean, we can bitch and complain all we want, but if we don't have people out there like you just really on the forefront on those committees and being part of that, you know, and, and really.

Wyatt Hanson (1:24:01)

Perry Thompson (1:24:19) telling people what's really happening out there. It's never going to happen. So thank you so much. And Richard, really, you were awesome just from, you've got the ranching background, but you also have been in county government and government in general for so long. You understand the kind of bringing that, that, that, connection between private industry, you know, that Wyatt is at the forefront and you're also in the forefront, but also from the policies and, and, and how it works at a county and state and federal level. That was great. So really want to thank you all for being here today. Thank you. Thank you so much. ⁓ And I really hope this gets widely shared because it's an important message. ⁓ And thanks again for everybody being here today.

Richard Egan (1:25:02) Thank you, Perry.

Wyatt Hanson (1:25:03) Thank you, Perry.

John McGarva (1:25:04) Thank you.

Perry Thompson (1:25:06) Alright guys, so...

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