A lone gray wolf who journeyed hundreds of miles from the Lake Tahoe area was spotted in Los Angeles County over the weekend in a rare wildlife sighting in Southern California.
In video posted by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the 3-year-old female wolf can be seen in the wild. She was born in Plumas County near Lake Tahoe and seen about 375 miles south early Saturday morning near Lancaster in northern Los Angeles County.
The state wildlife agency has been monitoring the wolf’s travels since May when she was fitted with a tracking collar.
The last gray wolf in the wild on record in Southern California was spotted in 2021 in Ventura County
Gray wolves are designated as recovery endangered species in California, protected under the state and federal endangered species acts. The wolves were likely extirpated — a species that has been eliminated or destroyed within a certain region — in the 1920 before returning on their own from other states, according to the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Natural recolonization began in California in 2011 before the formation of the Shasta Pack in 2015, which is no longer active There are nine confirmed wolfpacks in California, located in Shasta, Plumas, Lassen, Shasta, Tehama, Siskiyou and Tulare counties.
The agency investigates reported sightings, part of a monitoring program.
