The return of the wolf is more than a symbolic achievement, environmentalists say.
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With wolves now officially established in California, the state is likely to face conflicts similar to the ones Oregon experienced after wolves established territory to Wallowa County in 2008.
On a Northern California hiking trail near the Cascades’ Mount Shasta, two all-black adult wolves and five 4-month-old pups have been captured on film.
According to The Sacramento Bee, Kovacs further added that they haven’t set up a definitive wolf population goal yet and are still finalizing the amount of wolves in California the state’s habitat can now support.
The news of an actual wolf pack in California comes more than a year after OR-7, California’s famous wandering wolf, headed back to Oregon.
Historical records show that wolves lived in California for thousands of years before they were decimated in the area in the early 1900’s.
Currently, CDFW is incorporating comments from a stakeholder advisory group, and considering revisions due to implications of this news, before releasing the draft plan to the general public. Killing or even harassing the animals is prohibited. The last confirmed gray wolf sighting in California was in 1924, officials said. Across the United States, farmers and settlers had done their best to kill them off to protect livestock and use their charcoal-colored coats.
The photos were announced by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife on Thursday.
But that’s not the optimal approach, said Wilbur, noting that it can be hard to prove how a livestock animal was killed. Other times it’s picked clean by scavengers. Officials have named the group the Shasta Pack. He is believed to be the breeding male for the Rogue Pack in Southern Oregon.
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. “Fourteen years ago, the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors was considering legislation that would have been detrimental to wolves”, said Amaroq Weiss, wolf campaigner for the Center for Biological Diversity.
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“We are excited if not amazed at what this species has been able to do”, he said.
