CALIFORNIA CATTLEMAN WEEKLY

July 14, 2025

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Legislature Allocates $2 Million for Wolf Compensation
Last week, CCA reported on a public resources budget trailer bill exempting a variety of projects from the California Environmental Quality Act, including some wildfire resilience and farmworker housing projects. But there was another major win for ranchers tucked away in the revised Budget Act: $2 million earmarked for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Wolf-Livestock Compensation Program.

After the Compensation Program ran out of funds in March of 2024, CCA lobbied aggressively last year for additional funding for the Program, ultimately securing $600,000 in hard-fought funding. While CCA didn’t make renewed funding the centerpiece of the Association’s 2025 advocacy, CCA’s government affairs team continued to communicate the importance of Wolf-Livestock Compensation Funding to legislators, including Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas’ office. Those discussions clearly bore fruit, with an additional $2 million now available for the Program.

Last October, CDFW announced that it would only be compensating producers for direct losses of livestock from wolves, temporarily discontinuing non-lethal deterrence assistance and ‘pay for presence’ given limited funds. It is not yet clear whether the Department will reinitiate compensation under the other two ‘prongs’ of its Program in light of renewed funding, though agency staff will likely address this question during a CCA wolf webinar next week (see “Webinar: A Wolf Deterrence Discussion with NRCS & CDFW” under “Upcoming CCA Events,” below).

CDFW Releases 10-Year Wolf Report
In other wolf news, CDFW on Tuesday announced the release of “a report summarizing its management and conservation activities for gray wolves (Canis lupus) over the past 10 years.” The report does not contain many new details about wolves in the Golden State, but it is a succinct summary of the past decade of wolf management in the state and contains numerous easily-digestible tables and graphics summarizing wolf populations and tracking the movements of wolves throughout the state.

Notably, the report finds that California had a “year-end minimum count” of 50 wolves in 2024. CCA staff, reviewing the Department’s own Wolf Management Updates from June, September and December of 2024, has estimated the year-end population at a more robust 78 known wolves. It is the number of breeding pairs, however, which is relevant to the future of California’s wolf management, and the Report confirms that the state had five known breeding pairs at the end of last year.

Moving forward, CDFW plans to begin producing annual reports about wolf management and conservation efforts. According to the agency, those annual updates will be similar in format to the 10-year report.

CNRA Issues 2025 Progress Report for the 30×30 Initiative
The Newsom Administration announced last week that it had released its 2025 Annual Progress Report for the state’s 30×30 Initiative, an effort to durably conserve 30% of the state’s lands and coastal waters by 2030.

According to the Progress Report, 26.1% of the state’s land qualified as “durably conserved” as of last month, an improvement upon the 25.2% identified as conserved last year. Over the past year, the state added approximately 853,000 acres to its inventory of conserved lands – roughly equivalent to the pace of conservation set the prior year.

Cattle ranchers’ contributions to 30×30 over the past year are primarily highlighted in the Report’s section about increasing voluntary conservation easements, which, among other developments, showcases a 10,000-acre agricultural conservation easement on a working cattle ranch in Merced and Mariposa counties. The section also notes that the California Natural Resources Agency worked with the California Rangeland Trust over the past year to identify “conservation easements on private working lands” which qualify as conserved under the state definition. In total, 131,000 acres of conservation easement lands were added to the state’s 30×30 inventory over the past year, accounting for 15% of acres conserved over that period.

The Progress Report also notes that 21.9% of the state’s coastal waters are now considered durably conserved.

CCA sits on the California Natural Resources Agency’s 30×30 Partnership Coordinating Committee, which “is tasked with helping the California Natural Resources Agency uphold the 30×30 Partnership and foster inclusive public communication and statewide coordination.”

US Forest Service to Rescind 2021 Roadless Rule
U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has announced that the U.S. Forest Service will rescind the agency’s 2021 Roadless Rule, a regulation which prohibits road construction (and reconstruction) and timber harvesting on 58.5 million acres designated as roadless areas throughout the nation’s nation forests, including more than 2.5 million acres within California. The proposed rescission of the 2021 Roadless Rule has not yet been published in the Federal Register. For additional details, see the June 30 edition of California Cattleman Weekly.

Upcoming CCA Events

Upcoming Industry Events

Industry News

Secretary Rollins Takes Decisive Action and Shuts Down U.S. Southern Border Ports to Livestock Trade due to further Northward Spread of New World Screwworm in Mexico U.S. Department of Agriculture “While USDA announced a risk-based phased port re-opening strategy for cattle, bison, and equine from Mexico beginning as early as July 7, 2025, this newly reported NWS case raises significant concern about the previously reported information shared by Mexican officials and severely compromises the outlined port reopening schedule of five ports from July 7-September 15. Therefore, in order to protect American livestock and our nation’s food supply, Secretary Rollins has ordered the closure of livestock trade through southern ports of entry effective immediately.” To continue reading, click here.

The Realities of Ranching on the Range Drovers “Due to limited and varied rainfall, this southern California ranch uses targeted grazing to help restore habitat, increase forage production and mitigate wildfire.” To continue reading, click here.