Camera trap image of a gray wolf from the neighboring Lassen Pack, Lassen Volcanic National Park / CDFW

Earlier this month, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed there is a pack of gray wolves roaming within Lassen Volcanic National Park. Though gray wolves are known in nearby Lassen National Forest, with a group called the Lassen Pack being the best-known and most established wolf pack in California, this is the first time wolves have been recorded within the boundaries of the national park itself. 

The pack is yet unnamed, and though some reports suggest these wolves are composed of individuals birthed into the Lassen Pack, that's yet to be confirmed. It's thought to be a breeding pair and two pups, and the wolves were filmed on a wildlife camera.  

There are now about nine known wolf packs in California, spread throughout the Lassen area, the Lake Tahoe Basin, Siskiyou County near Mt. Shasta, and a southern pack in eastern Tulare County.

Screenshot / CDFW

It's thought there are somewhre between 60 and 100 wolves roaming the state at this point. Northern California alone has 23,000 square miles of suitable wolf habitat, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, an amount of territory that could support 500 gray wolves. 

The CDFW closely monitors the packs and individuals to help protect and manage the burgeoning populations.  

The return of gray wolves to California's mountains and forests is welcomed by conservationists and wildlife advocates as their return will help reduce coyote populations and more adequately balance out deer populations. It's hoped that as wolves push out coyotes it will help the struggling population of montane red foxes, which the Traveler has reported on previously. 

Gray wolves have made a stunning comeback in California after rhaving been eradicated in the state a century ago. It's an endangered species protected under the California Endangered Species Acts (CESA) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Federal Endangered Species Act. Gray wolves are native to California and the returning populations have traveled into the state from existing packs in neighboring states with the first known arrivals in 2011. Gray wolves were reintroduced to a handful of mountain west states in the 1990s and have spread from there.