In 2025, a federal wildlife program killed 28,000 animals in California and drove off about 1 million more, according to new data reported by the Sacramento Bee. Across the country, the same program killed 2.8 million animals and scattered another 25 million.

The program is run by a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Its stated purpose is to control invasive species and lower the risk to people, pets and livestock. Those goals matter, especially to ranchers whose families depend on healthy herds. But the program is part of a wider effort to manage predators such as coyotes, wolves, bears and mountain lions, and killing should never be the first answer.

Guard dogs, strong fencing, lights, noisemakers and careful herd management are all designed to keep predators away from livestock without a single animal dying. These tools give ranchers real options and give wildlife a chance.

"It's a very large number of lives that have been lost," Nadia Steinzor, carnivore conservation director for Project Coyote, told the Sacramento Bee.

The USDA has the power to change how this program works in California. It should require that proven nonlethal methods be tried first, allow lethal removal only as a last resort when people or animals face a real threat, and publicly report which methods were tried before any animal is killed.

This approach protects both ranchers' livelihoods and California's wildlife. Sign the petition to ask the USDA to put nonlethal methods first, before thousands more animals are lost.