One morning last year, Kent Laudon woke up to a flurry of text messages from a rancher in the state's northernmost county. He was wondering about a post on Facebook that urged people to look for a red truck that was transporting wolves to Siskiyou County, Calif. Mr. Laudon was not surprised. This wasn't the first post of its kind, and it wouldn't be the last.
He said that wolves make people crazy. That never happened.
Wolves don't need to be dropped off in California because they are returning on their own. In 1924, the last of the state's original wild wolves was killed by a hunter. There have been a number of canids since 2011. The population of wolves in the state's far- north counties is relatively stable. California can probably expect to have wolves in the state for a long time, even if the number fluctuates once spring begins.
Their return is motivating people like Mr. Laudon to fight misinformation. Biologists are learning more about their habits in order to help humans and wolves coexist.
North America had as many as two million gray wolves. When settlers arrived, they decimated the wolves and replaced them with livestock. California's wolves were no exception.
It was only a matter of time before wolves came back.
When wolves go in search of mates and territory, they leave their packs. A wolf named OR-7 was in California for 15 months. He had a radio collar that recorded 4,000 miles in his quest to find a partner. One of his daughters, OR-54, traveled over 8,700 miles, including a trip to the Lake Tahoe Basin.
A 2-year-old lone wolf traveled through the Central Coast of California for the first time in over a century. The wolf, named OR-93, was found in San Luis Obispo County, Calif. He traveled over 1,000 miles through the state before he was hit by a car.
wolves did not stay put in California until recently, despite the fact that other un collared wolves have been roaming the state. The state had its first modern wolf pack in 2015, when a pair of wolves from Oregon arrived in the area. The Shasta Pack were the first wolves to settle in California since the eradication of the species in the state. California was once again without wolves after the Shasta Pack disappeared.
A new wolf pack took up residence in western Lassen and northern Plumas Counties. Every year since its arrival, the Lassen Pack has had successful litters. Two new wolves arrived in the state in November of 2020 and created theWhaleback Pair and their pups, who now occupy 480 square miles in eastern Siskiyou County. In eastern Plumas County, biologists discovered the Beckwourth Pack, led by a 2-year-old female from the Lassen Pack.
The lower 48 states have an estimated 6,000 wolves. They were dispersed from three modern populations. Wolves entered Montana on their own. They were reintroduced to Canada in the 1990s. Some went to Washington State. Oregon's first pack arrived in 2009. A trip south into California was inevitable.
For the most part, California has been a good place for wolves. When OR-7 came in, it was an enormous celebration, according to a wolf biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. People are drawn to the story of a lone individual seeking a mate or going on an adventure in a place where his species hasn't been for years.
The landscape of California is very different than it was a century ago when the last wild wolves were wiped out. Since wolves were wiped out, the number of people living in the state's remote north has doubled.
Wolves have a bad reputation where there are people working and farming.
Wolves have been politicized because they are right in the middle of the divide between rural and urban, according to Mr. Laudon.
The gray wolf was taken off of the federal list of threatened species. In February of 2021, Wisconsin hunters killed 218 wolves in 60 hours, exceeding their hunting quota. The entire state's wolf population was wiped out in less than three days. The November 2021 hunt was put on hold after wildlife groups and Ojibwe tribes sued.
In February of this year, a federal judge in California restored federal protection for wolves, which will end hunts like the one in Wisconsin for now.
The ruling excludes wolves in most of the northern Rocky Mountain regions. Wolves in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and parts of Washington, Oregon and Utah were not included in the decision because of their higher populations. The wolves will be managed by their respective states.
In Idaho, there were no restrictions on how many wolves could be hunted in a year and how much hunting permits could be purchased. A new law in Montana allows bounties on wolves, similar to the early 20th century practices that caused the species to decline.
At least 20 gray wolves were killed after wandering out of the confines of the park onto state land in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. Since the reintroduced species was reintroduced to the area in 1995, there have been the highest number of hunting season deaths. There are less than 100 wolves in the park.
The wolf is used by people to oppose government intervention because they have been protected. Ms. Weiss said that people see protecting wolves as a symbol of everything they hate about the government.
California, a state with both rural and urban areas, has one of the strongest state endangered species acts in the nation. It's a crime to kill a wolf in California.
Where the wolves roam, the state's fish and wildlife agency tracks their location and collects blood samples, DNA samples, weight statistics and health information whenever possible to gain a better understanding of who stays and who leaves. Satellite modems are attached to some wolves. The fish and wildlife departments in California and Oregon talk about individual wolves. In Lassen, Modoc, Plumas and Siskiyou Counties, un collared wolves can be seen on trail cameras.
The wolves were able to survive the second largest wildfire in California's history, the Dixie wildfire, which burned nearly one million acres last summer.
Everyone is not happy about wolves returning. Mr. Laudon's job is to fight the wolves. He tries to break down barriers by presenting information in a way that allows people to make their own decisions. Sometimes it works.
There are 200,000 acres of land in Lassen and Plumas Counties that is managed by Dusty de Braga. He thought wolves were being imported when he first heard about them.
He said that it seemed to him to be questionable. He changed his mind after seeing the data on how far the wolves traveled.
Mr. de Braga has seen wolves many times. Between his herds and his two closest neighbors, wolves have killed over 20 cows and calves in the last five years. Some have been confirmed by the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Wolves are new here. It is the hardest when it is new. It gets in the paper when wolves kill something. It's fine for the entire year. It makes the news when wolves screw up, and the good news is they aren't anywhere.
Wolf managers believe the animals are not like the livestock killers people think they are. They can be frightened by mother cows. Wolves are easily deterred by electric fencing, bright lights and flashes. Young, weak and sick cattle are usually picked off when they do stalk cattle. They take dead carcasses.
The scale is the problem. Mr. de Braga and many other people who are dealing with large herds of wolves seem to think that it is futile to deter them.
It's hard to like wolves when they cost so much money. He said that they don't kill cattle every day, but there is no compensation program when they do.
According to a US Department of Agriculture report, 98 percent of adult cattle deaths and 89 percent of calves are the result of non-predator issues.
The majority of cattle deaths are caused by dogs, bears, coyotes, and other animals. Wolves are behind the animals. The Humane Society of the United States questioned the U.S.D.A. numbers in a report released in 2019.
They're fascinating but it's expensive to have them in your country.
No one can legally shoot them in California. Wolves in the state's north are able to act like wolves. wolves can continue their seasonal cycles of growing up, leaving the pack, finding a mate and denning while other places debate their reputation as either suitable or harmful. When wolves act naturally, biologists are able to learn a lot about what they do.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
