Wolf pack confirmed 50 miles north of Lake Tahoe

A new wolf pack around 50 miles north of Lake Tahoe was confirmed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The Diamond pack is a pair of wolves that roam the Lassen and Plumas counties. This makes nine known wolf packs currently across the Golden State.

Wolf specialists were aware of the wolves as early as last December with information that two wolves were potentially in the area on the Lassen-Plumas boundary. Camera traps as well as tracks and scat provided further clues to their presence.

“Basically, they have been consistently present in one area long enough for us to confidently say that they are a pack,” said State Gray Wolf Coordinator Axel Hunnicutt.

A pair of wolves must have four confirmed detections in a location within a six month period before CDFW will consider it a pack.

But there is another factor the department uses when determining a pack. “If they reproduce,” Hunnicutt said, “that’s a pack for sure.”

That may be in the future for these two. “We don’t believe that they have reproduced,” Hunnicutt reports, “but we think that this coming spring, it’s likely that pack could be larger.”

If the Diamond pack reproduces, it would add to a growing number of wolves in California.

This pack and another unnamed pack were announced in November. That makes three new packs announced this year. The first was the Antelope pack in the Sierra and Nevada counties, which makes it the closest known pack to Lake Tahoe, just north of Truckee.

This was a significant year for the recovery of gray wolf populations in California, which returned to the state naturally after populations were re-introduced in Yellowstone and central Idaho in the nineties.

“So there’s been a gradual dispersal across the West with California being probably one of the more recent states to have wolves naturally,” Hunnicutt said.

The department has seen a consistent presence of wolves in California since 2016. However, there was activity before that. In 2011, a collared wolf came from northeastern Oregon into California, but didn’t stay and instead established a pack over the southern Oregon border. Wolves from that group established a pack in California in 2015 on the slopes of Mount Shasta, but that pack didn’t last.

The following year, CDFW found the Lassen pack, not far from the Lassen Volcanic National Park. This pack has persisted since. The department has continued to discover more packs in California over the years.

“This last year,” Hunnicutt said, “we’ve had a pretty large growth all of a sudden.”

In addition to discovering three new packs, there were at least 30 pups born this year, according to camera trap photos and genetic analysis monitoring.

Not only is 2024 significant for wolf population growth, it also marks 100 years from the year wolves were wiped from California. “We do know that wolves were trapped and killed across the state and removed with the last wolf being confirmed killed in Lassen County in 1924,” Hunnicutt reports.

“They’ve long been the boogeyman,” he said. In order to protect livestock, federal and state governments systematically removed them. Prior to that, wolves were present in large numbers in the west.

Although no longer the target of extermination, the endangered species’ return to California comes with its own set of challenges.

“Wolves are returning to a very different California,” Hunnicutt said, “that is both full of people, highways, and livestock.”

California is now the most populous state in the country. For a species that typically avoids people, gray wolves have their work cut out for them.

“There’s a lot of human barriers in the sense of just our developments and communities,” Hunnicutt explains.

Due to the high population of people, it’s possible wolves could engage or interact with humans in the wild more frequently than other places in the west. Hunnicutt said wolves generally don’t pose a threat to people but can have issues with the companions that come with. “Wolves can be quite territorial and aggressive towards dogs.”

That’s why the department is educating the public on recreating responsibly in wolf territory and recommends dogs stay on leashes. It’s a good rule in general since it goes for encountering mountain lions or bears as well.

A part of the department’s gray wolf program is managing impacts on livestock. Modern day California also meets the wolves with a large number of livestock and yet again the potential for conflicts. Hunnicutt explains wolves are the ultimate generalists and good at adapting to a variety of landscapes and can take advantage of different kinds of prey.

It might explain why some packs are getting established near the Sierra Valley, a notable agricultural center for northeastern California. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence,” he said.

The gray wolves’ return has some wondering how they might impact native wildlife here as well. “California doesn’t have a large elk population,” Hunnicutt explains. “It is still a recovering population after reintroductions.”

He said unlike other states that also have moose or caribou, California doesn’t have as large a diversity of food for wolves.

It poses many questions about how wolves will alter the natural landscape and native wildlife.

“Wolves do have a place here, but” Hunnicutt said, “their return is going to probably showcase some sort of restructuring and realignment or equilibrium of the carnivores that are here, like black bears and mountain lions.”

He said their presence may also return the large amounts of coyotes to a normal densities.

The department’s wolf program is partnering with the University of California, Berkeley to help answer questions related to wildlife impacts.

Although packs are settling into areas just outside of the Tahoe basin, Hunnicut said its unlikely a pack would establish itself within the Tahoe basin itself due to the human presence and activity.

However, there is evidence wolves have moved through the Tahoe basin. In recent years a collared wolf moved through the Tahoe Truckee area. “It was very interesting to see the path that he chose,” said Hunnicutt. The wolf avoided Tahoe-Donner and traveled through the wilderness area.

The department as been following up on reports of wolves south of Lake Tahoe in the Hope Valley area but has not found any evidence.

For more information on gray wolves or to report a sighting, visitwildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Mammals/Gray-Wolf.