We have previously posted Robert H. Schmidt's 1991 historical accounting of Wolves in California..........With help from some good friends, you can read Schmidt's earlier 1984 historical take on C.lupus(attachment in body of article below).................Also, Calif. Fish and Game 2011 published their Wolf historical survey(Schmidt data used extensively in this report) just recently as OR7(Oregon Wolf 7) made an appearance in California over the past couple of weeks...........As we all know, first time in close to a 100 years for a Wolf to penetrate back into its historical California habitat

HISTORICAL RECORDS OF GRAY WOLVES IN

CALIFORNIA: by Robert. H. Schmidt

click here to read Robert H. Schmidt's 1987 review of wolves in California(scroll to page 31 of document)  Gray wolves (Canis lupus)probably were never abundant in California, although reports consistently show they were ptesent historically in the Sierra Nevada1 especially the northern portion,and 1n the southeastern portion of the state. Circumstantial evidence suggests that gray wolves were also present in parts of the Central Valley and the Coastal Range.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OREGON WOLF(OR7) PHOTOGRAPHED ON TRAILCAM IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

California Fish & Game Historical perspective on Wolves

Although not well documented, wolves are considered to have been present historically in California, at least in the Sierra Nevada, southern Cascades, Modoc Plateau, and Klamath Mountains.

Historic population information is unavailable. The paucity of documented, reliable observations, suggests that the population was not large.

. Gray wolves are very mobile, wolf packs are dynamic entities and single wolves disperse over long distances. These factors create the potential that one or more gray wolves will disperse into California, most likely from Oregon.

Where wolves have become reestablished, the level of public controversy has been significant.

Under current regulations, any wolf in California is protected as endangered under the Federal Endangered Species Act. California has few laws mentioning wolves and has no legal mechanism to authorize depredation permits for the take of wolves.

Wolves prey mainly on elk and deer. California elk populations are much smaller than States with current gray wolf populations, leaving mule deer as the most likely prey species for wolves in California.

Livestock depredation by wolves generates significant public controversy. Available information based on documented wolf predation indicates that the overall economic effect is small and less than predation by coyotes, mountain lions or bears. However, the impact on livestock producers, particularly sheep producers, can be substantial.

Gray wolves pose little direct risk to human beings.

 Documented History of Wolves in California

2.1 Historic Occurrence and Distribution

Although gray wolves formerly inhabited California, their historic abundance and distribution is unclear (Schmidt 1991, Shelton and Weckerly 2007). While there are many anecdotal reports of wolves in California, specimens were rarely preserved. The historic range of the wolf in California has been reported to include the Sierra Nevada, southern Cascades, Modoc Plateau, Klamath Mountains, and perhaps the North Coast Ranges (Stephens 1906; Grinnell et al 1937; Hall 1981; Paquet and Carbyn 2003). However, Schmidt (1991) concluded that wolves also "probably occurred in the Central Valley, the western slope of the Sierra Nevada foothills and mountains, and the Coast Ranges of California until the early 1800s, although their population size is unknown and may have been small."

2.2 Anecdotal Observations

Writings of early California explorers, settlers, and naturalists often refer to wolves. These descriptions were often accompanied by little detail and it is likely that many accounts are either erroneous or unfounded. Coyotes (

Canis latrans) were often referred to as wolves or prairie wolves in California and other western  states in the late 1800s and early 1900s (Grinnell et al.1937, Bruff 1949), and coyotes in the Sierra Nevada, southern Cascades, and Klamath Mountains were frequently called gray wolves or timber wolves (Grinnell et al 1937)

Based on available information, including known misidentifications, there is little credibility in many of these reports. An example of such an account is found in an 1827 journal entry describing life near the San Gabriel Mission (Los Angeles County): "Still at the Mission...Myself and Mr. McCoy went up into the mountains to see if we could find some dear [deer]; I saw two and wounded one, killed a wolf and two ducks..." (Rogers 1918). As no description of the wolf is presented, and no evidence from other parts of the journal indicated the author was familiar with coyotes, it is impossible to determine if the author was referring to

Canis lupus or Canis latrans.

Dixon (1916) described fruitless efforts to obtain wolf specimens for the University of California:

"For several years past the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology…has endeavored to corroborate reported occurrences of timber wolves in California, but without obtaining a single specimen. Several quite convincing reports of such captures have reached the Museum from time to time, but whenever the skin or skull was secured, the animal always proved to be a large mountain coyote…"

Except for the few cases where authors specifically mentioned both wolves and coyotes, or provided additional information suggesting their wolf observations were authentic, the anecdotal observations described in early writings must be treated with some skepticism. Additional anecdotal records are summarized and described in Appendix B.

2.3 Museum Specimens

DFG is aware of only two museum verifiable specimens of naturally-occurring wolves from California. Both are males located in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ) at University of California, Berkeley (Jurek 1994). One specimen was collected in the Providence Mountains, San Bernardino County, in 1922 (Johnson, et al 1948). It weighed roughly 100 pounds and apparently was caught in a steel trap, "while pursuing a bighorn sheep" (Grinnell et al 1937). Johnson et al (1948) noted that "This is the only record known to us of the occurrence of wolves in the Providence Mountain area, or, for that matter, anywhere in southeastern California. " Based on an examination of the skull, the authors concluded that this animal was more closely related to southwestern

1

The coyotes inhabiting these montane habitats tend to be larger and have thicker fur than their lowland conspecifics, and some taxonomists have recognized this larger race as the mountain coyote (Canis latrans lestes).

6

subspecies than wolves from Oregon. Given taxonomy currently proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) (2011c), this animal may have been a Mexican Wolf (

Canis baileyi).

The other specimen was collected in 1924, near Litchfield, in Lassen County. It was fairly old, missing a portion of a hind leg, and was emaciated. Though it weighed only 56 pounds, it was estimated that in good condition it would have weighed approximately 85-90 pounds (Grinnell et al 1937).

In 1962 a wolf was killed near Woodlake in Tulare County. Since wolves had not been documented in California for nearly forty years, this incident generated considerable interest and speculation whether a small resident population still existed in California (Ingles 1965). This was an adult male weighing only fifty-six pounds. A study was conducted comparing the skull of this wolf to other specimens at the MVZ (McCullough, 1967). The researcher concluded that the available evidence suggest this animal was introduced into California and most closely resembles wolves found in Southeast Asia, particularly Korea.

Lastly, the Department is inquiring about a reported wolf specimen having been killed in 1959 in California near the town of Verdi, Nevada. As of this writing, there is no conclusive evidence on the species of animal taken.

2.4 Summary of California Distribution and Abundance

The available information suggests that wolves were distributed widely in California, particularly in the Klamath Mountains, Sierra Nevada, Modoc Plateau and Cascade Mountains. Most of the anecdotal observations are ambiguous as to whether the observer was reporting a wolf or a coyote and the physical specimens are very few in number. These facts are most consistent with a hypothesis that wolves were not abundant, even though they were widely distributed, in California.