Wildlife Officials to Use Helicopters to Collar Deer, Elk, and Wolves Across Northern California

Wildlife managers across Northern California will soon take to the skies as part of a major effort to better understand how large mammals move across the landscape.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) announced plans to use helicopters in January 2026 to capture and fit deer, elk, and wolves with GPS tracking collars in multiple Northern California counties.

Helicopter operations targeting mule deer, tule elk, and Rocky Mountain elk will take place in portions of Alameda, Colusa, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Modoc, Plumas, Santa Clara, Sierra, Siskiyou, and Tehama counties. The data collected will help biologists better understand migration routes, habitat use, population distribution, survival rates, and how animals respond to changing environmental conditions.

Wolves will be a key focus of the project. Capture teams plan to collar wolves in Siskiyou, Lassen, and Tehama counties, with the potential to include uncollared packs in Modoc, Shasta, and Plumas counties. Any wolves captured will be released back into nearby suitable public habitat after processing.

Once deployed, GPS collars will transmit location data to CDFW scientists daily for up to three years. For wolves, that information will also feed into CDFW’s online Wolf Tracker map and be shared with livestock producers to help reduce conflicts. Officials emphasized that the collars do not provide real-time tracking, but still offer valuable insight into movement patterns.

The capture work will occur on public lands managed by CDFW, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management, as well as private lands where landowners have granted access.