A gray wolf wandered into Los Angeles county for the first time in more than a century on Saturday morning.
“This is the most southern verified record of a gray wolf in modern times,” Axel Hunnicutt, gray wolf coordinator for the California department of fish and wildlife, said.
The three-year-old black coat female, known as BEY03F, crossed into LA county around 6am on 7 February. Born in 2023 in Plumas county in the Beyem Seyo pack, she “traversed nearly the entire range of the Sierra Nevada mountains”, probably in search of a mate, said Hunnicutt. Wildlife officials have been able to track her location because BEY03F was fitted with a GPS collar in May 2025 while passing through Tulare county. To date, California fish and wildlife has not received any reports or sightings from the Los Angeles county public.
On Tuesday, she was traveling further north, “likely deterred by the Interstate 5”, said Hunnicutt. Vehicle strikes are a leading cause of death for wolves.
“It’s possible she may continue to travel hundreds of miles in search of a mate or she may come across a male tomorrow.”
The continental United States was historically home to thousands of gray wolves, but hunters and trappers extirpated the species, with the last wild wolf in California shot in 1924. In 1973, the population was protected by the Endangered Species Act and later reintroduced to Yellowstone national park in the 1990s. Those wolves eventually dispersed across the lower 48 states, with the first wolf crossing into California in 2011. By 2024, the California department of fish and wildlife estimated that there were at least 70 gray wolves in the state, up from 44 the year before.
“Just over 30 years ago, gray wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone national park and central Idaho. The wolves in California are [descendants] of these animals and made their way to California because of wolves doing what BEY03F is doing now: being an explorer,” said Hunnicutt. “Each year, we see continued successful reproduction and expansion of packs into new areas. This is driven by this dispersal movement.”
Although conservationists heralded BEY03F’s arrival in LA county as a win for wildlife, advocates are still trying to shore up protections for gray wolves nationwide.
On 10 February, the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s refusal to develop a national gray wolf recovery plan. In 2024, the Biden administration’s Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it would develop a national recovery plan for the species, but in 2025 the service published a finding saying it would no longer prepare an updated recovery plan, calling the gray wolf’s listing under the Endangered Species Act “no longer appropriate”.
