SACRAMENTO, Calif.— Leading wildlife experts and wolf biologists today urged the University of California, Davis, to take corrective action after the school published a misleading article about wolves.

The widely cited article outlines preliminary findings of a study on potential economic impacts to cattle owners due to California wolves, but the study has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in an academic journal, as today’s letter notes.

“It’s extremely worrying to me that these preliminary findings on California’s recovering wolves were presented as fact before the study has even been vetted,” said Amaroq Weiss, senior wolf advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Presenting preliminary results as truth could prove deadly for our state’s protected wolves.”

The UC Davis article claimed that a single wolf can cause livestock operators large economic losses. That triggered an onslaught of media coverage that reprinted the study’s preliminary findings as fact without questioning its scientific accuracy or applicability to other areas of the state.

“It’s biased and unrealistic to assume wolves are the causative factor for the effects these preliminary conclusions are claiming when there’s a universe of other factors in play,” said Carter Niemeyer, retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Idaho wolf recovery coordinator and former wolf specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services. “In my 30-plus years’ experience in the field, wolves don’t just spend all their time hanging out in and chasing herds of cattle. And the conclusions fail to account for the hundreds of other factors affecting cattle weight gain or reproduction, ranging from weather and drought to how the cattle are being managed. Saying that wolves are the primary cause and result in such exorbitant monetary loss is unrealistic and false.”

Today’s scientist letter questions the study’s reported findings and methodologies. It also questions whether the researchers’ findings are representative of wolf impacts in other parts of California because wolves’ effects on cattle will vary widely. That’s because of complex environmental settings and other context-dependent factors such as cattle breed, herd management, wild prey availability, wolf pack size, weather differences and more.

The study also failed to include a cost-benefit analysis despite multiple peer-reviewed, published studies clearly showing that wolves generate millions of dollars in economic benefits that far exceed losses to livestock operators.

“The widespread publicity of preliminary findings as facts will likely mislead state and federal policymakers, and the general public” said Fred Koontz, Ph.D., wildlife biologist and former Washington Fish and Wildlife Commissioner. “As a result, on the ground efforts for human-wolf coexistence and ecosystem health may unnecessarily be harmed at the local and regional level and when policy decisions are made.”

The scientists are asking UC Davis to clarify that the reported economic costs of wolves are unlikely to apply to other areas of the state or even to other regions of the country, and recommend that in the future the university disclose when it’s publicizing initial findings that have not yet been peer-reviewed.

"Effective methods for reducing conflicts between wolves and livestock have been developed, and programs for reimbursing livestock owners for documented wolf-caused losses are available. It is unclear if the researchers considered these factors at all in their analysis, which makes the release of these preliminary findings all the more problematic,” said David Parsons, former Mexican wolf recovery coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service.