A wolf that seized national attention when she ventured into Los Angeles County earlier this year continues to make history.
The 3-year-old female with black fur entered Inyo County around 7 a.m. Sunday about 20 miles south of Mt. Whitney. She became the first documented wolf to set paws in the Eastern Sierra county in more than a century, according to state wildlife officials.
By early Monday afternoon, she had pushed deeper into the county to west of the community of Bartlett, said Axel Hunnicutt, gray wolf coordinator for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Her movements are tracked with a GPS collar.
The wolf — known as BEY03F — essentially traversed the Sierra Nevada in the span of three to four days, a feat Hunnicutt believes was made possible by a low snowpack this season.
She was “able to amazingly quickly cross quite mountainous terrain,” he said. “I don’t think I could do that in three days.”
The roughly 60-mile journey adds to the hundreds of miles she’s already traveled from her birthplace in Plumas County, in the far northeastern corner of California.
She’s been in at least 12 counties and has possibly covered more than a 1,000 miles in her lifetime — crossing dangerous freeways multiple times, Hunnicutt said.
So what’s BEY03F up to now? She’s likely still looking for a mate, experts say.
That’s what brought her down to Los Angeles County on Feb. 7 in the first place. Breeding season runs from mid- to late winter, and wolves are only fertile once a year — right around Valentine’s Day. So even if she finds a hubby, pups won’t be in the cards this year.
Born into the Beyem Seyo pack, she made her way down to the Yowlumni Pack in Tulare County, where she was collared in May. (She left her birth pack before it became notorious for an unprecedented number of livestock attacks.)
She didn’t stay in L.A. long. Within two days of her arrival, she doubled back to Kern County. She soon was back in Yowlumni territory, in the southern Sierra, where she spent several weeks.
“Probably what we’re seeing is that she’s like, ‘Well, I didn’t breed this year, but I do still need to find a mate,’” Hunnicutt said. “So she will continue to travel.”
It’s possible that she’s pregnant and on the move, although that scenario is “less likely,” Hunnicutt said. Pregnancy would suggest that something unusual happened, like she was about to give birth and her partner died or left. Wolves start giving birth around mid-April, and they’re largely monogamous.
BEY03F’s journey is “a good educational opportunity for people to learn what a dispersing wolf is” — i.e., one who makes one-way, unpredictable movements in search of mate and territory — said John Marchwick, of the educational group California Wolf Watch. “And it’s great to see that she’s doing it in a historical context that’s getting more people to care about wolves.”
California’s wolves are steadily increasing, a stunning turn of fortune for the apex predators who were wiped out by hunters and trappers about a century ago. What was then the last known wild wolf in the state was shot in Lassen County in 1924.
It wasn’t until 2011 that the endangered canids returned, when a wolf ventured into the state from Oregon. He didn’t stay, but his arrival presaged their comeback, with 50 to 75 roaming the state today.
Still, they haven’t come back to all their previous haunts. There have been reports of wolves in Inyo County as the animals have rebounded, but none of those reports were confirmed, Hunnicutt said.
Although conservationists hail the resurgence as a success, crediting state and federal protections, some ranchers are concerned. Wolves that eat livestock take a bite out of the bottom line for ranchers.
A recent study from the UC Cooperative Extension found the economic toll of the attacks by the Beyem Seyo pack on cattle over seven months last year reached at least $2.6 million, a figure that includes the loss of livestock and interventions aimed at deterring predation.
On Monday, the state alerted officials in Inyo County that BEY093 was in town.
That’s done every time a wolf enters a new county for the first time to “prompt people to take non-lethal measures, or at least start thinking about preparing for wolves potentially being in their area,” Hunnicutt said.
BEY093 could make it to the Owens Valley, a place rife with livestock and elk — likely “a good place for other wolves to be,” he said.
She might just find one and settle down.
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