California wolf enthusiasts may be interested in learning that OR7, believed to be the state's only wild wolf, has crossed from Lassen back into Shasta County.
The state Department of Fish and Game has created a web page devoted to OR7 and posts occasional maps that reveal where the young male gray wolf has been, thanks to a GPS unit fitted onto its collar. The maps are lagged, however, to avoid revealing the wolf's real-time location.
The accompanying map, released Wednesday, shows OR7's position through Feb. 9.
But the DFG also provides more timely updates, and earlier this week the agency reported that the wolf, who crossed from Oregon into California in late December, had entered Shasta County. He had also been in Shasta before entering Lassen County, and had previously been in Siskiyou County.
An update Wednesday morning states that OR7 is in the southeast portion of the county and traveling to the south. That would place him close to where he was before he entered Lassen County.
To be sure, if OR7 is searching for a mate his vast wanderings seem a sad and hopeless journey through bountiful but wolf-less terrain. The last known wolf in California was a specimen killed by a trapper in Lassen County in 1924.
OR7 is 2 1/2 years old and hails from a pack in northeastern Oregon. He entered California on Dec. 28.
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