One of the objectives of the wolf-livestock interaction study is to quantify the influence of wolf presence on cattle performance and grazing behavior across herds of cattle grazing on rangelands. In order to accomplish this, cattle will be randomly selected from wolf-affected and control herds to be fitted with a GPS collar that will track their movement during the summer (June - October) grazing season. 

Following a century of expatriation, gray wolves (Canis lupus) returned to California in 2011, and populations have rapidly grown. This has created a challenge facing ranchers, policy makers, and conservationists: restoring wolf populations – a Statewide policy – while fairly compensating ranchers for direct (i.e., livestock kills) and indirect (i.e., reduced livestock performance) costs of cohabitating with a regulatorily protected large carnivore.