Repopulation of wolves in California
[3][4] Wolves were reintroduced to Idaho in the 1990s and expanded their range into the northern Rocky Mountains and Pacific Northwest.
[7] The vast majority remain clustered in their historic range in the northeast corner of the state, where the forests between the high mountains and populated areas are full of elk and deer.
[12] With its dense forests, plentiful deer and other prey, and vast expanses of wilderness where roads do not pose a fatal threat, California has areas of excellent habitat for wolves.
Nicknamed Journey,[15] he was a male gray wolf that migrated from the Wallowa Mountains in the northeastern corner of Oregon.
[17] After leaving his pack, he wandered generally southwest for more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) through Oregon, and entered northern California.
He spent much of 2012 exploring northeastern California in a circuitous path across seven different counties that eventually covered thousands of miles.
[25] Ranchers have argued for the right to protect their livestock, but penalties will be imposed for the killing, shooting, injuring, or taking of wolves in California.
[19] She is not related to known Oregon wolves, and genetic analysis indicates that she likely dispersed from some other part of the northern Rocky Mountain wolf population.
[30] Born in 2014, possibly in Wyoming where she has half-siblings, she traveled 800 miles (1,300 km) or more through the Great Basin Desert in Utah and Nevada, or a much longer journey through Idaho and Oregon.
Wildlife experts explain that it is possible for other wolves to follow said urine scent and these initial wolf sojourns can open up new territory.
The two-year-old male wolf was fitted with a purple radio collar in June 2020 by tribal biologists on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in the northern Cascade Mountains in Oregon.
[49] After leaving his White River pack on January 30, 2021,[50] he reached Mono County, east of Yosemite National Park in the central Sierra Nevada in February, which was the farthest south a wolf has been tracked in California in more than a century.
They had been notified of his presence by the California Cattlemen's Association which had been watching his progress since the wolf entered the state.
[53] Eventually, he made it as far as San Luis Obispo County, which is nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from his birthplace south of Mount Hood in western Oregon.
[56] OR-93 may have been spotted on May 15 in southwestern Kern County in a videotape of a wolf at a water trough on private property.
[55] This is the farthest south in California that a gray wolf has been documented since one was captured in San Bernardino County in 1922.
[59][60] A truck driver notified authorities after he noticed a dead wolf along a dirt trail in Kern County off Interstate 5 near the town of Lebec.
A wildlife biologist employed by CDFW attempted to capture members of the pack in order to place collars on the wolves, take blood samples and swabs, and test for disease.
[66] In March 2023, a private trail camera picked up wolves in Sierra Nevada foothills of Tehama County between Los Molinos and the Ishi Wilderness.
[17] The California Fish and Game Commission granted the gray wolf protection in 2014 under the state's Endangered Species Act.
[12] To balance ample prey for wolves with opportunities for hunters, the plan included management of deer, elk, and other game animals.
[76] In 2019, California Fish and Game Commission opposed the federal proposal to delist wolves from the Endangered Species Act.
They argued that federal protection was still needed to make a full recovery since the future wolf population in California will depend on expanding from other states.
[77] In November 2021, a federal judge held a hearing on whether wolves were properly classified under the Endangered Species Act prior to losing their protected status in the previous year.
[80] The CDFW seeks to collar at least one animal per pack, in part to alert local ranchers when wolves are in their area.
[81] Gray Wolves in California: An Evaluation of Historical Information, Current Conditions, Potential Natural Recolonization and Management Implications (Report).
