The gray wolf called OR-54, after having been the 54th such wolf to be fitted with a tracking collar in Oregon, was found dead in California’s Shasta County last Wednesday. The cause of death is currently being investigated by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The young animal was first identified as having been born into the famous Rogue Pack of Southern Oregon, and was collared in 2017. Between then and December, 2019, when her collar stopped working, officials report that she’d logged some 8,712 miles, an average of 13 miles/day.
Much of that distance is thought to have been covered since OR-54 split from the pack in January 2018. As is typical of wolves, she probably left home in search of a mate or another pack. She would have been following in the footsteps of her presumptive father, OR-7, who also traveled far and wide before establishing the Rogue Pack astride Klamath and Jackson counties.
GPS collars give wildlife agencies valuable data about the wolves’ movement and behavior, through which they can help ranchers and wolves avoid conflict. Although gray wolves are protected under the Endangered Species Act, and harming them is a crime, ranchers do experience loss of their livestock, and sometimes take matters into their own hands.
OR-54’s demise can be seen in tragic terms, but, on the whole, wild populations of gray wolves in the American West have been on the rise for two decades.
By Peter Bask
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