A wolf has arrived in Los Angeles County for the first time in more than a century
A wolf arrived in Los Angeles County Saturday morning, marking the first time the predator has been documented in the area in at least a century, according to wildlife officials.
Around 6 a.m., a 3-year-old female in a black coat arrived in the mountains north of Santa Clarita, according to Axel Hunnicutt, gray wolf coordinator for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Four hours earlier, he was driving through the desert in southern Kern County, he said.
He knows that because the wolf – known as BEY03F – is wearing a GPS collar. She wore it last May while spending time with the Yowlumni Pack in Tulare County. He disappeared from that place about a week ago.
“His journey is not over,” Hunnicutt said.
BEY03F is looking for a spouse “and the fact that he is still moving is an indication that he has not found a suitable spouse and place.”
Place from the collar on the wolf on Saturday. CDFW’s wolf tracker provides the last known location of satellite-tracked wolves within California to help livestock producers reduce wolf-livestock conflicts.
(California Department of Fish and Wildlife)
He has come a long way to find love. Born in 2023 in Plumas County’s Beyem Seyo Pack, he traveled over 370 miles and walked the length of the Sierra Nevada to get to where he is now. It was an accident. In the past two days, he crossed State Route 59 three times near Tehachapi.
“This marks a historic period for the return of California’s wolves,” said John Marchwick, author of the nonprofit California Wolf Watch.
Marchwick credited the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s monitoring efforts and the animal’s protection under the State Endangered Species Act, saying they “allowed the dispersal of this individual to be documented, but also realistically possible.”
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California wolves were exterminated by hunters and trappers over the past century, with the last wild wolf shooting in 1924.
It wasn’t until 2011 that broad-faced canids made a comeback, when wolves entered the state from Oregon. He did not stay but his arrival signaled their return.
Today, there are believed to be at least 60 wolves roaming the Golden State.
The future of BEY03F is full of possibilities. Although there are no known wolves in the San Gabriel Mountains (where he was this morning) or the Tehachapi Mountains, there may be a man living there. If he is there – and he meets and marries her – he can form a pack. Or he may wander back north, along the Sierra Nevada and hundreds of miles beyond.
“One thing we know is that he travels a lot, that’s where he comes into contact with human infrastructure, especially highways,” Hunnicutt said. “And we know that in California, the most common cause of death for wolves is traffic collisions.”
Another southbound, OR-93, entered San Luis Obispo County in 2021 before being hit by a car in Kern County.
