SEQUOIA NATIONAL MONUMENT, Calif. — I took my dogs with me up to near, it wasn’t at the Trail of One Hundred Giants but it was in the area.”
That's John Ornosky, a Wofford Heights resident recounting his experience in mid-September.
“Not far into the hike at all, I came upon the signs.”
The sign Ornosky is referencing states that there are traps in the area that could potentially snare dogs. Those traps, meant for a new wolfpack that has been discovered in the southern part of Tulare County in the Sequoia National Forest.
“It was a good warning, I was glad I saw them as quickly as I did because then I instantly put the dogs away and basically took a picture of the sign and left.”
Wolves, once eradicated from California – the last known gray wolf in the 20th century was shot and killed in 1924. Almost a hundred years later, they’ve slowly started to return. Jordan Traverso, Deputy Director of Communications for California Fish and Wildlife, said the department started receiving reports of wolves near the Giant National Sequoia Monument in July of this year.
“So we went out there to check out if that was the case because this would be the southernmost pack that we’ve had since wolves returned to California in 2011,” Traverso said.
After the department collected hair and scat samples they confirmed a previously undetected pack of wolves in the area.
“Once we have an established pack, part of what we do is go put on and try to just collar the wolf,” Traverso explained.
The department had a collaring expedition, as part of that, they set up traps. Ornosky told me he doesn’t agree with the collaring.
“We just learned that they were here and already people are trying to trap them,” Ornosky said.
Traverso says this is standard protocol for the wolf management plan at the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Collars track more than just the wolves' locations.
“What they use the land for, what kinds of things they need, like canopy cover and water and food source, and how they move, we learn a whole bunch of things,” Traverso said.
However, the most recent collaring expedition for the new wolf pack was unsuccessful and the traps have since been removed. Traverso says there are plans for another collaring expedition, but she is unsure when that will be.
“They’re really Hi-Tech. Males' necks will swell when they are breeding and there’s a series of magnets that open up and close up depending on how big their neck gets. If they grow if you put it on a young put and then they grow," Traverso says, “They’re designed to give us information for about a year and a half but then they fall off.
Fish and Wildlife then tracks and retrieves the collar. Ornosky says he’s excited that wolves are returning to the Sequoias.
“It's nice to know that things are getting more wild for me. It's exciting,” he said.
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