The wolves’ numbers have been steadily increasing, and individuals have expanded their territory by carving out new niches in the rapidly altered environment.
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Two adults and five wolf pups have been captured on camera in Northern California’s Siskiyou County.
The Sonoma Land Trust is hosting two screenings of Clemens Schenk’s film about OR7 this week in Santa Rosa.
All the wolves in the pack are black in color, which is fairly common among gray wolves, according to Karen Kovacs, the agency’s wildlife program manager for Northern California.
The pack appears to include a wolf photographed by state fish and wildlife experts last month, then believed to be alone. It was obviously given basted on the pack’s location near Mount Shasta.
This discovery represents a major comeback for these animals once on the brink. “These are very resilient critters”.
Though wolves rarely pose a direct threat to human safety, CDFW is recommending that people never approach, feed or otherwise disturb a wolf.
“This news is exciting for California”, said Director Charlton H. Bonham of the Fish and Wildlife Department. Killing or even harassing the animals is prohibited.
The preservation of these wolves is of utmost importance, especially since the last wolf sight confirmed in the state dates back to 1924.
The department says it is completing a Draft Wolf Management Plan and will release it soon. Sometimes the carcass is never recovered.
Trail cameras first spotted a suspected gray wolf in May and June and biologists set out to retrieve scat samples and set up additional cameras, wildlife authorities said. Gray wolves that enter California are therefore protected by the ESA making it 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.
As of 2014, there were 1,657 wolves in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming and 145 in Oregon and Washington, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The so-called Shasta Pack will enjoy protection under the state’s Endangered Species Act.
While the great return has been greeted with excitement, concern was also voiced, mostly by hunters and livestock producers.
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“We’ve really been given a second chance to restore this iconic species to the landscape that they’ve been missing from for almost a century”, she said.
