Grey Wolf Spotted in SoCal

For the first time in one hundred years, a grey wolf was spotted in Southern California.  A grey wolf, known officially as OR-93 [photo] traveled from Oregon to SoCal. 2021.  Her epic journey ended in a vehicle collision along I-5 about 50 miles north of Los Angeles. Recently, A wolf was spotted by a biologist doing restoration work in Giant Sequoia National Monument ravaged by wildfires.  Later DNA analysis of hair and scat samples showed an adult female wolf.  She is the leader of the southernmost California pack in a region of the Sierra Nevadas that has not been occupied by wolves in a century.  She and her four offspring are direct descendants of famous OR-7, the first wolf known to cross into California. Biologists are cautiously optimistic that the Tulare pack will adapt to their environment only 130 miles away from Los Angeles, if left undisturbed.

But the Tulare Pack is already causing friction with local livestock owners and logging managers.  Conservationists have urged post-fire logging operations be suspended until the impact of such activities on wolves can be assessed.  California lists grey wolves as endangered; they cannot be killed unless in defense of humans.  The law provides for full market value payments to owners whose livestock are killed by wolves.  A new program even compensates owners for stress impacts from the presence of wolves within a pack territory.  So far, there have been no confirmed kills by wolves in the region. 

Once numbering in the millions, wolves are thought to be reduced to only 7500 in the lower 48 states causing herbivore numbers to explode. The apex predators are needed to restore balance to affected ecosystems. Yellowstone National Park has benefitted immensely from the reintroduction of wolves in the 1990s. About two dozen wolves live in northern California including the Lassen Pack (Lassen and Plumas Counties), Beckworth Pack (eastern Plumas County) and Whaleback Pack (eastern Siskiyou Counties)  A pack of all black wolves near Shasta has not been seen since their discovery in 2015; presumably they were killed after incidents of livestock predation.