Famous lone wolf OR7 is being satellite tracked again

His disappearance prompted worry that something had happened to him-

Legend has it that lone wolves don’t live long if they remain mateless. However, the Associated Press reports that wolf OR7, born in NE Oregon to the Imnaha Pack and then slowly migrating all the way to northern California is still fine. He disappeared, but has been found again. OR7 disappeared to the satellite that tracks his radio collar signal.  These collars don’t last forever and they also slip off.  People also shoot  wolves and dispose of the collar.  OR7 had not been tracked for a week, but California Department of Fish and Game biologists found his track in a deer rich area of Plumas county and then soon the satellite began to track him again.

Given the age of his collar it would not be surprising if it failed in the near future though some collars have broadcast a very long time.

Despite the joy, and the also the panic in some quarters, that there was a wild wolf in California, in the year (almost) OR7 has been in California he’s rarely been seen and is not known to have killed any livestock.Unless a female migrates from Oregon too, his life may leave little ecological mark on the state.

AP story by Jeff Bernard, Oregon’s wandering wolf lopes back onto grid after eluding satellite. Eugene Register-Guard.

Wolf supporters are trying to put wolves on the California state endangered species list. There is a hearing before the California Fish and Game Commission Oct 3 in Sacramento. Here is the agenda. It is item 16.

 

 

16 thoughts on “Famous lone wolf OR7 is being satellite tracked again

  1. Wonder if they’ll attempt to recapture him and replace his collar. Seems like it would be a good idea to keep track of him and maybe lead biologists to other wolves if they happen into the area as well. Probably hard to trap him though since he doesn’t really have a home range and most likely doesn’t stay in an area that long.

    1. Yes, leave him be. It’s almost comical(if the results weren’t so tragic) how one animal can cause so much irrational anxiety, even to this day. I don’t know why the wolf is persecuted more so than other predators.

      1. Such Predators As Humans — One Of The Most Irrational Predators On The Planet Earth. Leave The Wolf Be !

  2. Perhaps as a result of today’s hearing……the left coast will be forced to deal with all of the associated problems related to wolves. Maybe today is a good day. Maybe the population of California, after having portions of their economy destroyed in order to ‘protect’ wolves, can change their opinions about wolves and allow the other western states to manage wolves as they would like to.

    1. Ben Schoppe said,
      “Maybe the population of California, after having portions of their economy destroyed in order to ‘protect’ wolves…”
      How would a single male wolf do that? It seems to me that fear and overreaction does a good job of destroying economies, so what’s the wolf got to do with it?

    2. C’mon fellas, what’s more logical? (A) California’s economic crisis is the result of poor lending practices and inadequate federal regulationa that resulted in a giant housing bubble, combined with low demand in Europe due to a lagging economy and an overly optimistic budget, as well as numerous other factors largely beyond the state’s control, or (B) the one wolf that walked through N. California wreaked havoc on the world’s 6th largest economy?

      Simple answers for simple minds.

      1. Me thinks Mr.Schoppe probably believes Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs are literary works of non-fiction.

      2. B)……
        OR7 is Godzilla! (cue Blue Oyster Cult)
        And yep….suspect Ben has partaken…

    1. A first hand account of the hearing in California… this lady is an amazing speaker and I’m glad to know that she was a presenter at this event:

      Amaroq Weiss says:
      October 4, 2012 at 6:52 pm

      Ralph,

      The October 3rd Fish and Game Commission hearing in CA was not particularly heated, as far as public wolf meetings go. I attended and presented on behalf of the four petitioning organizations (CBD, EPIC, KS Wild and Big Wildlife) as well as on behalf of my own organization, California Wolf Center. The California Department of Fish and Game presented for about 15 minutes. Then Petitioners were allowed to present for 15 minutes. Then public comment took place for about an hour and a half. There was perhaps a little bit of labeling taking place on both sides of the issue. All who testified commended the Department for how proactive they have been from the very start, in keeping stakeholders informed and operating transparently. Many if not all of the representatives of ag groups, outdoors groups and county official reps advised that all the goodwill the Department had been engendering would go to ruin if the Commission accepted the petition and that these stakeholders may just pull out from the discussions. I did not hear any pro-wolf commenters threaten to pull out of the process if the Commission didn’t accept the petition (though I did have to step out of the room for about 10 minutes while being interviewed by a local tv news station, so I may have missed something). The Commissioners’ legal counsel then spoke, and advised the Commission not to accept the petition, based on his perception that a population of “one” wolf in the state was not sufficient to designate the species as a candidiate. The Commissioners listened to what he had to say, then each gave their own thoughts, including that the bar is set very low under statute for what is required to accept a petition and designate as a candidate species. Then they voted, and unanimously found there was sufficient information to find that listing may be warranted and, thus accepted the petition. So, really, in the scope of the world of all the public wolf meetings we have all attended, this one was quite civilized, and having the whole hearing take only about 2 hours wasn’t very long — it may have seemed so, since it was the 2nd to last item on the agenda for the day, but, really, 2 hours is kind of short for a public wolf meeting.

      Amaroq

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