California’s wolf debate is no longer theoretical—it is unfolding in real time on ranches, in forests, and across the state’s fragile water system. In a wide-ranging and candid conversation on Ag Meter, Emmy Award–winning filmmaker and PBS host Jeff Aiello breaks down why California’s environmental policies are colliding head-on with agriculture, food security, and rural livelihoods.
Aiello, the creator of American Grown: My Job Depends on Ag and Outside Beyond the Lens on Valley PBS, recently produced a powerful multi-part documentary on wolves in Sierra Valley. What he witnessed firsthand, he says, was far worse than he expected.
When Policy Meets Reality in Sierra Valley
Aiello’s wolf investigation began after growing alarm among ranchers and local officials in Northern California. When filming finally began, his crew arrived during an active wolf hazing operation—ranchers, county officials, California Department of Fish and Wildlife vehicles, USDA drones, and cattle all moving at once.
“This isn’t sustainable,” Aiello said on camera during filming. Wolves, reintroduced as a fully protected species, are now operating with little deterrence. Ranchers cannot legally remove problem animals, even after repeated livestock losses.
Aiello emphasizes that this is not an anti-wolf argument. Wolves are apex predators—intelligent, social, and highly effective hunters. The problem, he explains, is management. Other regions, including Canada, use targeted lethal control when wolves repeatedly prey on livestock. California largely does not.
Even pro-wolf researchers agree that lethal control must be part of the management toolkit. Without it, Aiello warns, public tolerance collapses—and that ultimately threatens the future of wolves themselves.
Environmentalism Without Humans Doesn’t Work
The wolf issue, Aiello argues, is part of a larger pattern. From forest management to water policy, California has repeatedly engineered environmental solutions that ignore human realities.
Forest mismanagement, driven by the removal of the timber industry while maintaining aggressive firefighting, has produced overgrown landscapes now fueling catastrophic wildfires. Similarly, water policy centered on the Delta—California’s “aorta”—has relied on flushing massive volumes of freshwater while failing to modernize wastewater infrastructure or expand storage.
Aiello points out that California remains dangerously vulnerable. A major earthquake in the Delta could cripple the state’s water delivery system almost overnight.
Agriculture’s Untold Climate Role
One of Aiello’s strongest points is often absent from climate conversations: agriculture is the largest large-scale industry on Earth actively removing carbon from the atmosphere every day.
Orchards, row crops, and rangelands pull CO₂ from the air through photosynthesis. “No industry fights climate change like agriculture,” Aiello says. He urges farmers to own that truth—and say it out loud.
Reducing California farmland, he argues, does not eliminate food demand. It exports production to countries with fewer environmental protections, worsening global outcomes while weakening U.S. food security.
Why These Stories Matter
Through 1830 Entertainment and his PBS partnerships, Aiello sees storytelling as advocacy—not activism, but truth-telling. Farmers are too busy growing food to fight media narratives. His work, like Ag Meter, fills that gap.
This conversation is not just about wolves. It is about balance, accountability, and whether California can protect the environment without sacrificing the people who feed it.
👉 Watch the wolf documentary episodes
American Grown: My Job Depends on Ag | Sierra Valley Wolves Part 1
American Grown: My Job Depends on Ag | Sierra Valley Wolves Part 2