- The California Fish and Game Commission will be in Mount Shasta on Wednesday for the possible ratification of its findings to list the gray wolf as an endangered species
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By David Smith
The California Fish and Game Commission will be in Mount Shasta on Wednesday for the possible ratification of its findings to list the gray wolf as an endangered species.
The process began with a 2012 petition submitted by the Center for Biological Diversity, Big Wildlife, the Environmental Protection Information Center and the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center that asked the FGC to list the wolf under the California Endangered Species Act.
An animal is considered for the list if the species is “a native species or subspecies of a bird, mammal, fish, amphibian, reptile, or plant which is in serious danger of becoming extinct throughout all, or a significant portion, of its range due to one or more causes, including loss of habitat, change in habitat, overexploitation, predation, competition, or disease,” according to FGC code.
The commission’s draft findings state that FGC code, CESA and other applicable laws do not require a species to have a continuous breeding population in California in order to meet the definition of “endangered” or “threatened.” Currently, there are no known established wolf populations in the state, and so far, there have only been intermittent visits by a wolf designated as OR-7 over the past few years.
The draft identifies other species that demonstrate the precedent, including the listing in 1971 of the Guadalupe sure seal and the American wolverine, both of which occur only sporadically in the state and have never been recommended for delisting.
The FGC drew upon numerous informational sources in making its determination, including the initial petition, reports from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the administrative record, which includes thousands of written and oral comments. CDFW itself, in its status review of the gray wolf, stated that it does not find listing to be warranted, but did indicate that the agency believes listing would be necessary in the future.
The draft notes that of the possible factors that can lead to a determination include overexploitation, predation, disease and other natural occurrences or human-related activities that can present a threat to wolf populations here.
The findings detailed in the draft indicate that the FGC believes that wolves historically existed in California and were distributed throughout the state, although not in large numbers. The document also states that evidence shows that wolves were extirpated from the state by the end of the 1920s, based on a 2012 report prepared by CDFW.
“As to the science available at this time and the reasonable inferences that can be drawn from that information … humans likely purposefully extirpated the species in California early in the twentieth century,” the report states.
The draft also goes into detail about the movements and behavior of OR-7, which is described as exhibiting normal wolf dispersal behavior. It is noted that since its discovery, the wolf has found a mate and is currently denning with pups on public land in southwestern Oregon.