Lassen’s Famed Wolfpack Grows with a New Litter of Pups
The Lassen Pack, California’s only known wolfpack, has grown recently with the announcement of a new litter of pups. It’s the third litter from the pack that wolf specialists have recorded this year alone.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife wolf specialist Kent Laudon, who is based in Redding, made the announcement at a recent meeting of the Wolf Stakeholder Group.
“We still don’t know how many there are.” Laudon said. “We’ve got cameras out and we think there are at least three.”
Some wolf pups of the recent litters have died, while others have dispersed to other areas. Specialists are continuing to attempt to track the pack to better understand its size and movement tendencies.
“We’re going to try and collar one or two more wolves in the pack now, and then we’ll have better ideas on where they are headed and see what’s happening with other wolves on the landscape.â€
The Lassen Pack is the descendant of famed OR-7, a wolf that famously traveled from Oregon into Northern California in 2011, becoming the first known wolf in the state in nearly 100 years. The Lassen Pack’s father wolf, known as CA-08M, is the son of OR-7.
The only other known pack in California was the Shasta Pack, which mysteriously disappeared in Siskiyou County recently.
The revival of wolves in Northern California remains a controversial topic in rural communities. The fascinating animals diversify the local ecosystems while creating legitimate arguments between conservation and protecting personal property, particularly of cattle on remote ranches.
‘Legitimate arguments’ about cattle ranchers? Read Never Cry Wolf. They eat mostly rodents.
Wolves are Dangerous and kill for the fun of killing,they will kill live stock for fun and family pets,they eat a lot of big game in the winter when the pack can hunt down the game when the snow gets deep,when people are out walking there pets or out hunting they will kill your dogs fast, it’s open season on the wolf when I see one
Never Cry Wolf is more a novel than an ethnographic report. And it describes the Summer behavior of the breeding pair, when mice are plentiful and accessible. See Mowat’s People of the Deer for a more true-life account of the trip on which NCW was based.
Never Cry Wolf is more a novel than an ethnographic report. And it describes the Summer behavior of the breeding pair, when mice are plentiful and accessible. See Mowat’s People of the Deer for a more true-life account of the trip on which NCW was based.
When I read “mysteriously disappeared” regarding wolves in Siskiyou I suspect someone shot them, though I don’t know what they’d have done with any collars or whatever was used for tracking. Although I don’t want wild wolves nor coyotes near my dog, cats, or son I’m still sad the Shasta pack is disappeared. The issue of wolves in the wild in the area is an interesting one. I’ve heard wolves singing live in Yellowstone, that was amazing. To hear the pack in Lassen is growing is interesting.
It’s all of ours, the wilderness. It needs to be shared with all creatures.