Every night, Roen would go out in his pickup truck and try to keep the wolves away from his animals, until exhaustion drove him to bed in the hours before dawn. He came to dread the sound of his cows bawling for their lost calves. By June, Roen, who is also a Sierra County supervisor, and his fellow ranchers had persuaded the state to intervene: A team started to patrol the Sierra Valley rangeland, harassing wolves with rubber bullets, sirens, and eventually drones. At one point, Roen said, officials even tried piling frozen beavers outside the wolves’ den to sate their hunger. But still, the kills continued.