Open aggression against wolves in California is escalating. A young wolf born in Oregon who traveled in nine northern California counties was found dead in Siskiyou County yesterday. She entered California two years ago and in her first six months traveled over 8,000 miles and covered five counties. She was the daughter of famous traveling wolf OR-7, who visited California in 2011. He was the first wolf to enter the state since radical anti-environmentalist ranchers extirpated wolves nearly 100 years earlier.
CDFW Press Release
OR-54, a female dispersing wolf approximately 3-4 years old, was found dead in Shasta County on February 5, 2020.
OR-54 was born into Oregon's Rogue Pack most likely in 2016. She was the fourth Rogue Pack wolf known to have spent time in California. OR-54 weighed 83 pounds when collared by ODFW biologists in October 2017. On January 24, 2018, she crossed the state line into eastern Siskiyou County. Since then, she spent much of her time in California, although she made two trips back to Oregon. She covered more than 7,646 miles after leaving the Rogue Pack. OR-54 traveled widely in northeastern California, through portions of Butte, Lassen, Modoc, Nevada, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou and Tehama counties. In late September 2019, she crossed to the south side of Interstate 80 and briefly entered Nevada before returning to California and crossing back to the north side of the highway the following day. Her travels represent the southernmost known wolf locations in the state since wolves returned to California in 2011.
Gray wolves are covered under both the Federal Endangered Species Act as well as the California Endangered Species Act. CDFW takes very seriously any threats to this recovering wolf population. We are currently investigating the circumstances surrounding OR-54’s death. We remind the public that killing a wolf is a potential crime and subject to serious penalties including imprisonment.
Last month, I reported that CDFFW announced a reward for information about a 2018 wolf shooting in Modoc County: Fluffy wolf boi killed by radical anti-environmentalists.
Two big wolf stories this week, one from California and another from Colorado, spotlight the fears and thrills of wolf re-introductions. A lone wolf who traveled from Oregon into northeast California was shot and killed (by ranchers?). In northwest Colorado, a wolf family was spotted and video’d last October. Although individual wolves have been reported now and then, this is the first evidence of a wolf pack in Colorado since the 1940s. Wolves had been killed aggressively by radical ranchers who thought they were in charge of everything because they’d lived there for a few decades.
In 2018, a wandering wolf from Oregon was shot and killed with a 22-caliber weapon in Modoc County California. This week, the USFWS announced that the dead wolf was found on December 5, 2018, less than a week after the tracking collar showed him entering California. Also on Dec 5, a rancher reported seeing a wolf feeding on the carcass of a 3½ month old calf. While OR59’s tracking collar documented him in the northern Lassen County area where the calf was found, CDFW’s review did not find evidence of wolf depredation.
The Center For Biological Diversity, this week, increased the reward for information about the killing (that leads to a conviction) to $7500. Initially, USFWS, who decided to ask the public’s help, had offered a $2500 reward after a year-long investigation into the wolf’s killing ran low on leads.
I previously had documented OR-54’s journeys in California.
February 2018 — Rogue Wolf Girl Looking for Hot California Lover
A young female wolf from Oregon’s Rogue Pack was tracked entering eastern Siskiyou County California in late January. OR-54 probably is the daughter of the first wolf to enter California in a 100 years, OR-7, and likely is dispersing in search of a mate or another pack.
She was trapped in Oregon in early October 2017 and outfitted with a radio collar to help key tabs on southern Oregon’s Rogue Pack and is the only member of that pack wearing a tracking collar. Around the time she was trapped, biologists also spotted OR-7 on a camera trap so as of last fall, he was still alive and well.
In 2014, OR-7 fathered the first wolf pack in southwestern Oregon in more than six decades. He and his mate also had litters each of the next three springs. OR-7 will turn 9 years old this spring. The average life span of wolves in the wild is 6 years, fish and wildlife statistics show.
June 2018 Newest gray wolf visiting California checked out Tahoe
A young female wolf touring California from southern Oregon’s Rogue Pack became the first wolf sighted in the Sierra Nevada Mountains since gray wolves reintroduced themselves into the state. She’s thought to be the daughter of OR-7, the first wolf to visit California in almost a hundred years. OR-7 left northeastern Oregon’s Imnaha Pack in 2011 and wandered for over 1,000 miles. He first entered California in 2011 and went back to Oregon. Then returned in 2012 and spent a year here before settling with his mate in Oregon’s Rogue River area near Medford in 2013. They had pups in 2014 and were named the Rogue Pack . OR-7’s radio collar batteries died in 2015 and he’s been tracked since then by sightings and trail cameras. Two of his offspring have already founded packs in the Cascade Range of northern California.
The two-year-old OR-54 seems to share her father’s wanderlust. She might be dispersing in search of a mate, or left because her pack got too large and she is seeking food. Or maybe she just likes to travel. It’s her second visit to California. Earlier this year, she was spotted further north, near Chester (Lassen County). She had crossed into the state from Oregon on January 3rd and stayed until late February.
OR-54 returned to California in mid-April and was tracked last week to within a mile and a half of I-80 near Boreal Mountain, the first time a wolf has roamed in the Sierra Nevada mountains since the early 1900s (as far as we know). She moved north from Nevada County (Tahoe) again and now is in Sierra County. Her travels have covered at least 638 miles through five counties in California.