The gray wolf is back in Northern California! The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) has captured remote camera photographs of five gray wolf pups and two adults this month in Siskiyou County near the Oregon border.
“This news is exciting for California,” said Charlton H. Bonham, CDFW Director. “We knew wolves would eventually return home to the state and it appears now is the time.”
A single wolf was reported in the same area earlier this year. CDFW deployed cameras near the sightings. One camera captured images of five pups, which appear to be a few months old, and two individual adults, and the CDFW named this group the Shasta Pack after a nearby mountain.
Apart from a lone male wolf, known as OR7, picked up on trail cameras in December 2011, these are the first confirmed wolf sightings in California since 1924. OR7 left California more than a year ago and is currently the breeding male of the Rogue Pack in southern Oregon.
Endangered and protected
From the 1800s and into the twentieth century, the species was gradually driven out of the state. Wolves were killed by ranchers to control predation on other animals and hunting, and coupled with human activity, we saw the wolf disappear from California.
In June 2014, the California Fish and Game Commission listed gray wolves as endangered under the California Endangered Species Act. The Federal Endangered Species Act of 1973 also lists the species as endangered in California.
These listings mean it is illegal to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect wolves, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct in California.
The historic status of gray wolves in California is poorly understood. Specimens were rarely preserved and confusion arose because coyotes were often referred to as “wolves” in the western states in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The CDFW says “it is impossible to know whether an animal referred to as a wolf actually was a wolf except for the two museum specimens currently known from California.”
But the old populations of Californian wolves probably roamed the Sierra Nevada, southern Cascades, Modoc Plateau, Klamath Mountains, and perhaps the North Coast Ranges. Early explorers and settlers also reported wolves in the Central Valley, the western slope of the Sierra Nevada foothills and mountains, and the Coast Ranges of California until the early 1800s.
There is no confusion this time around. The animals are back and captured on film. But the reappearance of wolf packs in a region is always contentious. With this in mind, CDFW is preparing a Draft Wolf Management Plan. Numerous meetings have already been held with local stakeholders, and further public meetings will be scheduled to hear public opinion comment on the draft plan.
If you are lucky enough to spot a wolf, sightings can be recorded on the CDFW gray wolf website.
Shout, don’t run!
Though wolves rarely pose a direct threat to human safety, CDFW recommends that people never approach, feed or otherwise disturb a wolf. If you do get close up and personal with wolves, here’s CDFW’s advice.
Don’t run. “Maintain eye contact. Act aggressively and back off slowly, making a lot of noise. If the wolf does not retreat, continue acting aggressively by yelling or throwing objects.”
As the CDFW points out, wild wolves generally avoid people and there have been few confirmed attacks. But these predators can be more dangerous when they become “habituated” to humans. To avoid habituation, wolves, like all other wildlife, should never be fed or approached.
(Image credit: CDFW)
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