Lone Wolf Headed to California

These days, everyone gets a press release including a 2 1/2 year-old male gray wolf wandering the wilds of Oregon.

An outcast from a pack in northeast Oregon, he is making is way steadily south, and has already traveled more than 300 miles toward California. That is pretty noteworthy because the last gray wolf in California was killed in 1924, according to the California Department of Fish and Game.

So it’s unlikely that this guy will ever make his way down to Los Alamitos. But the Department of Fish and Game’s Southern California offices are in Los Alamitos, and I figure that gives me license to share with you the news that has the department pretty excited. So here is the story of the lone wolf headed to California per the Department of Fish and Game:

A Lone Wolf Travels Toward California

Recent news accounts have reported that a gray wolf has been wandering
in southern Oregon. According to the Oregon Department of Fish and
Wildlife (ODFW) this animal is a 2 ½ year old male formerly from a pack
in northeast Oregon. Since the animal has been collared with a Global
Positioning System (GPS) device that periodically transmits its
location, biologists have been able to document its travels since early
September. Based on the GPS data, he is now more than 300 miles from
where his journey began. As of yet, there are no direct observations
confirming his presence, or that of any other wolves, in California.

“It’s too early to say with any certainty whether wolves will again
become a resident species in California,” Department of Fish and Game
(DFG) Director Charlton H. Bonham said. “But it is definitely an
historic predator surrounded by legend and lore.”

Any wild gray wolf that returns to California is protected as
endangered under the Federal Endangered Species Act, administered by the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).

DFG has been following the recovery and migration of gray wolves in
western states with the expectation that at some point they will likely
reach California. The last confirmed wild gray wolf in California was
killed in Lassen County in 1924. The available historic information on
wolves in California suggests that while they were widely distributed,
they were not abundant. DFG has been compiling historic records, life
history information, reviewing studies on wolf populations in other
western states, enhancing communication with other agencies and training
biologists on field techniques specific to wolves. This effort is to
ensure that DFG has all necessary information available when needed, it
is not a wolf management plan and DFG does not intend to reintroduce
wolves into California.

There are more than 1,600 wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains
following a federal reintroduction effort, which occurred in the
mid-1990s. In 1999 a single wolf crossed into Oregon from Idaho, after
nearly a 60-year absence in that state. There are now at least 23 wolves
in Oregon in four reproducing packs. It has taken an additional 12 years
for the first wolf to now approach the California border. This
particular animal is exhibiting normal dispersal behavior for a young
male and there is no way to predict whether he will enter California,
stay in Oregon, or travel east into Nevada. Eventually, DFG expects that
wolves will reach California. Whether this will lead to the
establishment of packs or simply transient individual animals is
unknown.

Gray wolf recovery in other western states has been controversial,
particularly regarding impacts on prey populations, livestock
depredation and human safety. There have been instances where gray wolf
predation has contributed to declines in deer and elk populations,
however, in most cases, predation has had little effect. Some gray
wolves have killed livestock - mostly cattle and sheep - while others
rely entirely on wild prey. In other western states the impact of
depredation on livestock has been very small, certainly less than
predation by coyotes and mountain lions, although the effect on an
individual livestock producer can be important, particularly when sheep
are killed.

Concerns about human safety are largely based on folklore and
unsubstantiated in North America. In recent years there was one human
mortality in Canada caused either by wolves or bears and one confirmed
human mortality in Alaska by wolves. Based on experience from states
where substantial wolf populations now exist, wolves pose little risk to
humans.