In response to “In the Valley of the Wolves,” published in South Tahoe Now.
The recent beautifully written article about the hardships facing Sierra Valley ranchers following the return of gray wolves asks us to sympathize with families whose livelihoods and traditions are being threatened. It relies heavily on the fact that families have been ranching the valley for five generations, but the piece overlooks an inconvenient piece of history.
Five generations may sound like a long time, but not when measured against the history of the Sierra Valley. Long before cattle were driven into its meadows or fences divided the land, the Mountain Maidu and Washoe people had lived in this region for thousands of years. And so had wolves.
When white settlers arrived in the mid-1800s, they weren’t moving into an empty wilderness. They were occupying lands Indigenous people had inhabited and cared for over thousands of years. Cattle ranching, agriculture, mining, and logging dramatically altered the landscape. Traditional gathering grounds were fenced off, native vegetation degraded, and Indigenous communities displaced through violence, disease, discriminatory laws, and the destruction of their traditional ways of life.
And while five generations of ranching may establish a family tradition. It does not establish ownership of the natural world, nor give one industry the right to decide which native species are permitted to exist alongside it, especially when that tradition was built on the removal of people who have been there longer.
This is not about blaming today’s ranchers for what happened 175 years ago or dismissing the hardship of losing livestock. Ranchers deserve effective assistance, fair compensation and practical support to protect their animals.
But what if wolves left the cattle alone?
Would their return suddenly be welcomed? Unlikely. Some hunters already complain about wolves preying on deer and competing for animals they would otherwise hunt. It seems wolves can’t win. Eat cattle and they’re a menace. Eat deer and they’re competition.
Equally troubling is the language used to describe these animals. References to “starving wolves” and parents fearing attacks on their children paint a frightening picture, but where is the evidence? Wolves can go days without eating; that is normal predator behavior, not proof they are starving or becoming desperate enough to attack people. According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, wild wolves generally avoid humans, and attacks are exceptionally rare. Parents may genuinely be frightened, but fear alone does not establish a threat. Invoking children’s safety without evidence of dangerous wolf behavior fuels hostility rather than understanding.
Wolves are predators. They kill to survive. This is not cruelty or malice. It is how nature works, and how it worked long before humans decided which animals were useful, profitable, or desirable.
Wolves were deliberately eradicated from California because they interfered with livestock production. Now, as they return to their former range, we seem determined to repeat the arguments that led to their extermination.
There have clearly been problems with how wolf conflicts have been managed in the Sierra Valley. Questions need to be asked about delayed intervention, inadequate resources, the effectiveness of deterrents and whether ranchers have received the support they need. These concerns deserve more than political rhetoric or promises that never materialize.
But none of that changes the fact that wolves belong here.
Ranching is an industry, and like every other industry, it must adapt to changing conditions. The notion that families should be able to continue doing exactly what their grandparents and great-grandparents did, simply because it is tradition, is increasingly unrealistic. Climate change, prolonged drought, shifting weather patterns and growing pressure on water resources are transforming the American West. We cannot fully predict what these changes will mean for the Sierra Valley, but the landscape will not remain as it was a hundred years ago.
Something is appealing about cattle grazing peacefully in mountain meadows, much as they have for generations. But expecting that bucolic picture to remain unchanged indefinitely, while the climate shifts and native predators return, is unrealistic. Farmers and ranchers will have to adapt, just as the rest of us will.
The Sierra Valley does not have to choose between ranchers and wolves. Coexistence requires investment, cooperation, and a willingness to change practices that worked for generations in the absence of large predators. What it cannot require is that wolves once again pay the ultimate price for our unwillingness to adapt.
The Mountain Maidu and Washoe people were here before the ranches. Wolves were here before the cattle. Neither should be written out of that history simply because their presence complicates the story we prefer to tell about the American West.
After 175 years of reshaping this landscape to suit ourselves, it is time to accept that we are not the only ones entitled to live here.
-Vicki Schmitt