...At least seven California game wardens wearing bulletproof vests and sidearms drove into Big Valley, past alfalfa fields and cattle pastures. Their pickups crunched along a dirt road before turning onto a ranch.

Carrying a warrant, the wardens searched three homes at the property.

Before they left that day in August 2019, the wardens interrogated a young man, a sixth-generation rancher with close ties to other farming families in this part of Lassen and Modoc counties.

The wardens asked him if he’d shot and killed a wolf. In the days before the wolf died in December 2018, it had been spotted feeding on a calf that had died in a rancher’s pasture.

The wardens thought they had their suspect.

Nine months earlier, 23-year-old Brett Gagnon’s mobile phone had sent signals to local cell towers, putting him near the location where the wolf, which carried a GPS collar, had been shot and killed in a forested meadow 150 yards off a desolate country road. The pings indicated that Gagnon had been nearby within minutes of the wolf’s collar sending out “a mortality signal” to the biologists tracking its movements.

During the raid, the wardens seized just one gun, a .223 rifle, with a caliber that was the same as the bullet found in the wolf’s carcass. They took two unfired .223 rounds, Gagnon’s phone and his computer.

Gagnon was possibly facing jail time and tens of thousands of dollars in fines for killing a wolf protected under state and federal endangered species laws.

But the investigation began to unravel.

During an interrogation, Gagnon insisted he didn’t kill the wolf, though his family — like so many in this part of the state — has no love for the predators that began to move back into far Northern California nine years ago.

The wardens found no evidence in Gagnon’s text messages or his photographs that he’d shot the wolf. And when the ballistics on the bullet came back, the round in the wolf’s carcass wasn’t fired from the gun that the wardens took.

A year and a half later, the case remains under investigation, and Gagnon remains a free man. Despite rewards of $7,500, the wolf’s shooter remains at large.

The wardens’ show of force ratcheted up tensions between local ranchers and California’s wildlife agency. To the ranchers, the raid was a sign that the state was willing to go to any length to send a message that wolves are more important than the local families trying to make a living on the soil that sticks in their boot cleats.

“They desperately want to make an example out of someone, in my opinion,” said local rancher Aaron Albaugh, a Lassen County supervisor who is friends with Gagnon’s family.

The game wardens, however, say they were following where the evidence took them, as they sought to enforce wildlife-protection laws that are widely popular in California.

“No matter if it’s a dead wolf or a dead deer, we take protecting California’s wildlife very seriously,” said Chief David Bess, California’s top officer at the Department of Fish and Wildlife. ...

...At least seven California game wardens wearing bulletproof vests and sidearms drove into Big Valley, past alfalfa fields and cattle pastures. Their pickups crunched along a dirt road before turning onto a ranch.

Carrying a warrant, the wardens searched three homes at the property.

Before they left that day in August 2019, the wardens interrogated a young man, a sixth-generation rancher with close ties to other farming families in this part of Lassen and Modoc counties.

The wardens asked him if he’d shot and killed a wolf. In the days before the wolf died in December 2018, it had been spotted feeding on a calf that had died in a rancher’s pasture.

The wardens thought they had their suspect.

Nine months earlier, 23-year-old Brett Gagnon’s mobile phone had sent signals to local cell towers, putting him near the location where the wolf, which carried a GPS collar, had been shot and killed in a forested meadow 150 yards off a desolate country road. The pings indicated that Gagnon had been nearby within minutes of the wolf’s collar sending out “a mortality signal” to the biologists tracking its movements.

During the raid, the wardens seized just one gun, a .223 rifle, with a caliber that was the same as the bullet found in the wolf’s carcass. They took two unfired .223 rounds, Gagnon’s phone and his computer.

Gagnon was possibly facing jail time and tens of thousands of dollars in fines for killing a wolf protected under state and federal endangered species laws.

But the investigation began to unravel.

During an interrogation, Gagnon insisted he didn’t kill the wolf, though his family — like so many in this part of the state — has no love for the predators that began to move back into far Northern California nine years ago.

The wardens found no evidence in Gagnon’s text messages or his photographs that he’d shot the wolf. And when the ballistics on the bullet came back, the round in the wolf’s carcass wasn’t fired from the gun that the wardens took.

A year and a half later, the case remains under investigation, and Gagnon remains a free man. Despite rewards of $7,500, the wolf’s shooter remains at large.

The wardens’ show of force ratcheted up tensions between local ranchers and California’s wildlife agency. To the ranchers, the raid was a sign that the state was willing to go to any length to send a message that wolves are more important than the local families trying to make a living on the soil that sticks in their boot cleats.

“They desperately want to make an example out of someone, in my opinion,” said local rancher Aaron Albaugh, a Lassen County supervisor who is friends with Gagnon’s family.

The game wardens, however, say they were following where the evidence took them, as they sought to enforce wildlife-protection laws that are widely popular in California.

“No matter if it’s a dead wolf or a dead deer, we take protecting California’s wildlife very seriously,” said Chief David Bess, California’s top officer at the Department of Fish and Wildlife. ...