The Wolf Of The West Coast (2002) Download
Bok Miklas
Decades of extermination programs to appease the livestock industry drove wolves out of West Coast states in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The last wild wolf was documented in California in 1924, when it was shot in Lassen County. The last breeding wolves in Washington were eliminated in the 1930s, and in Oregon the last wolf was killed for a bounty in 1947.
That's why the Center and allies petitioned California to protect wolves under the state Endangered Species Act and, in June 2014, the California Fish and Game Commission voted to grant our petition. Those protections were extremely timely because only one year later, California's first known wolf family, the Shasta pack, was confirmed in the state, and in the following years, three more California packs have been confirmed.
Scientists have identified several additional wild areas in Washington where wolves could live, including the Olympic Peninsula. To date no wolf packs occupy western Washington, though a pair of wolves was confirmed there in spring 2022.
Congress stripped wolves of their federal Endangered Species Act protection in the eastern third of Oregon in 2011 and in early 2021, wolves lost federal protections in the rest of the state. Thankfully, federal protections in the western two-thirds of the state were restored in early 2022, due to our court challenge. In November 2015 the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission prematurely stripped wolves of state endangered species act protections, and in 2019 the commission approved revisions to the state wolf plan, which unfortunately set the bar low for when wolves can be killed for conflicts with livestock and which opened the door to hunting and trapping of wolves.
In the 1980s, wolves from Canada dispersed into northwestern Montana and formed breeding pairs. In 1995 and 1996, 66 wild wolves were translocated from Canada to central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park. Since then, the wolves have bred and dispersed out of the original release area and across the Pacific Northwest.
The historical range of wolves in California spanned most of the state, including the coastal range from San Diego to Sacramento, as well as inland in the Sierra Nevadas. Wolves were declared extinct in California in 1924, but in August of 2015, California Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed that California had its first wild wolf pack in almost a century. Learn more about our work recovering wolves in California.
Conservation Status: "The gray wolf is protected as endangered under the authority of the federal Endangered Species Act in Oregon west of highways 395, 78, and 95." ODFW Feb. 12, 2021
Oregon Wolf Population: 158 wolves (as of 2020)
Conservation Status: "Endangered in the western 2/3rds of Washington, west of U.S Highway 97, State Route 17 and U.S. 395. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) has primary management authority to the east of that line. Wolves that inhabit tribal lands east of highways 97, 17 and 395 are managed by those specific tribal entities."
Washington Wolf Population: "The year-end minimum population count for 2020 was at least 132 known wolves in 24 known packs including at least 13 breeding pairs. The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation reported 46 wolves in five packs. Annual wolf population surveys are conducted in the winter because wolf populations experience the least amount of natural fluctuation during this time."
In the 1980s, wolves from Canada dispersed into northwestern Montana and formed breeding pairs. In 1995 and 1996, 66 wild wolves were translocated from Canada to central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park.
Wolf populations had declined significantly by the early 20th century, primarily due to loss of habitat and conflicts with people. In 1980, the Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery Team initiated wolf population recovery efforts in the northern Rockies of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. As a result of these efforts, as well as the reintroduction of wolves in Idaho which naturally dispersed to neighboring states, the wolf population of Montana is now on the rise.
Wolves in Wyoming were removed from the endangered species list in 2017, leaving species management to be led by the State of Wyoming. This wolf population includes packs in Yellowstone National Park, which were reintroduced starting in 1995.
Other Names: Lobo
Commonly called "lobo," the Mexican gray wolf historically ranged throughout Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico. They are the most genetically distinct subspecies of gray wolf and are unique to North America. This population of wolves was reintroduced starting in 1998 from captive-bred individuals. Learn more about what California Wolf Center is doing for Mexican gray wolf conservation.
After being hunted to the brink of extinction in the wild by the early 20th century, 11 Mexican gray wolves were released into a federally designated Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area in east-central Arizona in 1998. Today, Arizona is one site of ongoing Mexican gray wolf recovery.
Aside from Alaska, Minnesota is the other only state that has always held a viable gray wolf population, despite decreasing numbers due to human conflict. Recently protected again under the Endangered Species Act as of 2014, their populations continue to rise.
After federal protections were established for wolves via the Endangered Species Act in 1973, the wolf population in Minnesota began to increase and expand their range. As of the year 2000, wolves in the Western Great Lakes region surpassed federal recovery goals.
OR-93, a nearly two-year-old male wolf from Oregon, was fitted with a radio collar last June near where he was born, south of Mt. Hood in Oregon. He left his pack and headed south, arriving in Modoc County, California in late January. He has continued traveling swiftly, moving through Lassen, Plumas, Sierra, Nevada, Placer, El Dorado, Amador, Calaveras, Mono, Tuolomne, Mariposa, Merced, Madera and now Fresno county.
According to state wildlife officials, 16 other wolves have ventured into California, almost all from Oregon. They include OR-7, who dispersed there in 2011 and was the first wild wolf confirmed in the state in 87 years.
Great Wolf Lodge Illinois opened its doors in 2018, giving Chicagoland a convenient place to getaway with the family without sacrificing any of the fun. With 80,000 square feet of indoor water park fun and a variety of new amenities, the 17th Great Wolf Lodge is making a huge paw print in the Midwest.
Chris Darimont, science director at the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, has studied the carnivores' unusual lifestyle for nearly two decades. He shared some intriguing facts about this little-seen population of gray wolf.
Unlike their inland cousins, coastal island wolves are entirely dedicated to the sea. Their genes prove it; collectively, coastal island wolves have distinct DNA that sets them apart from interior wolves, according to a 2014 study published in BMC Ecology.
Though such genetic differences within wolves is not uncommon, discovering it in an area as small as the west coast of Vancouver Island is, says co-author Erin Navid, a research grants officer at the University of Calgary.
People usually associate wolf meals with elk or deer, but these guys are practically pescatarians, with salmon accounting for nearly a quarter of their diet. Beyond that, they forage on barnacles, clams, herring eggs, seals, river otters, and whale carcasses. (See more photos of coastal wolves.)
Cognizant of this reality, the hunting coalition filed a second petition on remnant wolves to develop a pathway out of the litigation morass that has strangled effective wolf management for nearly 20 years. With remnant wolves addressed with the second petition, the coalition is confident that FWS can move forward, once again, with a WGL DPS delisting action that will survive court scrutiny.
The remnant petition requests two specific actions. First, the FWS should create a West Coast Wolf DPS (WCW DPS) consisting of the partially recovered and rapidly growing wolf populations to the west and south of the defined NRM DPS. This DPS would mostly cover non NRM wolves in California, Oregon, and Washington.
On Wednesday morning, the Colorado Department of Transportation closed multiple highways due to low visibility and safety concerns. Many of the mountain corridors will remain closed throughout the night with the possibility of closures extending into much of Thursday. CDOT is continuing to monitor safety concerns including avalanche danger along southwest and south-central mountain passes.
Vargas Island has become famous for its wolf pack, but there is legitimate concern that human garbage and even deliberate feeding of wolves is leading their inevitable demise. After all, one tourist was attacked while sleeping on the beach, but what the often-told story leaves out. From a fantastic 2017 article in The Tyee J.B. MacKinnon explains:
In the fall of 2011, a radio-collared Oregon wolf with the designation OR-7 from the Imnaha Pack in northeast Oregon made history. After an epic journey across the state, the two-year old male became the first confirmed wolf west of the Cascades since the last wolf bounty had been collected in 1947.
In a moment of rare historic symmetry, OR-7 - born to the first pack of wolves to return to Oregon since that tragic day - may have passed by the very spot in the Umpqua National Forest where Oregon's last wolf was killed.
After spending time in the Soda Mountain Wilderness, Klamath Basin and Sky Lakes Wilderness south of Crater Lake, OR-7 continued his journey south and became the first wolf confirmed in California in nearly a century. Part of what made OR-7's trek across the state possible were the Wilderness and roadless areas he traveled through, demonstrating the value and worth of large roadless areas to facilitate wildlife corridors (learn more about roadless areas below).
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