A trail camera in Northern California captured footage of three adorable gray wolf pups walking through coniferous woods in Lassen County where they were also caught yipping and then howling in boisterous fashion.
The video, taken on June 18 in a remote location, was released Tuesday by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The yipping and howling begins at the one-minute mark:
The footage, which also shows a collared adult wolf and a yearling, is evidence that the Lassen Pack is growing. With these three pups born in mid-April, the pack’s numbers are now at least seven but perhaps as many as 10, according to the Mercury News.
Gray wolves went extinct in the state in 1924, but a wolf from Oregon known as OR-7 crossed into the state in December 2011, marking a start to wolf expansion in California, the Redding Record Searchlight reported.
“This pack has been on the landscape in California since 2016,” Kent Laudon, a wolf biologist with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, told the Mercury News. “They had their first litter in 2017. Generally you would expect pups every year, so long as the adults stay healthy. They are acting like regular wolves.”
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The Lassen Pack’s range is Lassen and Plumas counties, approximately 100 miles south of the Oregon border. Only two wolves are collared in California.
In 2014, the state added the gray wolves to the California Endangered Species Act, making it illegal to poison, shoot or harm a wolf.
Across the United States, there are roughly 6,000 gray wolves. About 4,000 are in Minnesota, upper Michigan and Wisconsin.
About 1,500 are in the Northern Rockies, mostly Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. In Washington State there are 126 wolves, in Oregon 137 and in California an estimated seven to 10. In the Southwest, the Mexican Gray Wolf numbers about 130 animals. As many as 8,000 more live in Alaska.
Photos courtesy of California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
