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KEN DEVOL, ANCHOR:
The small California gray wolf population has grown significantly this year. Within the last few weeks four new packs were reported by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW).
Gray wolves are indigenous to California, but by 1920 virtually all had been exterminated. However, in 2011 they began to filter back into the state mostly from Idaho and Oregon.
According to CDFW, this spring the state’s wolf population consisted of approximately 20 members in three packs located in Lassen, Plumas and Siskiyou counties. Now there are four new confirmed packs, adding at least another 37 wolves.
Amaroq Weiss is the Senior Wolf Advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity.
WEISS: “We’ve had a slew of exciting information for wolves in the last few weeks. California does have good habitat for wolves, and here they are because there have been state and federal protections in place.”
Ranchers worry about predation of livestock, but Weiss told NSPR that based on statistics from other states with larger populations these claims are greatly exaggerated.
WEISS: “All the data shows that wolves cause a fraction of a percent of all the livestock losses. Ninety-five percent of livestock that are lost, that are killed or injured, is from causes other than predators of any kind. It’s disease, dehydration, starvation, ingestion of poisonous weeds.”
Weiss says it’s unclear if the sudden increase in numbers will continue. Much depends on the health of wolf populations in states to the north, which are the source of California’s gray wolf migration.
The most important thing for wolf recovery, she says, is that protections afforded under state and federal law remain in place.
