First gray wolf enters Los Angeles County in 100 years

For the first time in a century, biologists have documented a gray wolf in Los Angeles County over the weekend, a sign that these predators that were eliminated from the state by hunters are making a comeback.

“I am rooting for her,” said Beth Pratt, the California regional director of the National Wildlife Federation. “It is a hard go for a wolf in urbanized areas, because of the roads and development. But she has some gumption.”

The 3-year-old female black wolf, code-named BEYO3F, traveled about 125 miles from Tulare County but most likely has been journeying 500 miles in the past year looking for a mate, said Axel Hunnicutt, the state gray wolf coordinator for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife on Monday.

In May 2025, CDFW biologists fitted her with a collar that periodically emits a ping that reveals her whereabouts. On Monday, she went north and ended up in Kern County.

No other wolf has stepped foot into L.A. County in more than 100 years. In November 2021, a wolf traveled south from Oregon to the edge of L.A. County. However, OR-93 was killed by a vehicle strike on the 5 Freeway in Kern County, near where BEYO3F is currently staying.

“What is amazing is she is putting footsteps down where we have not had in 100 years,” Pratt said. “Sort of like footsteps on the moon.”

Pratt, who also founded Save L.A. Cougars, helped make the mountain lion that lived in Griffith Park for 10 years, P-22, a household name in L.A. She is also behind the building of the massive Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing in Agoura Hills over the 101 Freeway so that cougars and other animals can cross into northern mountain ranges to find mates and reproduce.

The mountain lions in the Santa Monica, San Gabriel and Santa Ana mountains are hemmed in by freeways and development. A crossing over the freeway will help them roam, find mates and thrive. They are being considered for threatened species status by the CDFW in hearings Wednesday and Thursday in Sacramento.

Comparisons with the gray wolves, which are presently listed as endangered species in both California and nationally, and the mountain lions, trying to survive in the most populated state in the union, crossed Pratt’s mind when she heard the news of the intrepid wolf’s journey.

“She may be one of the first animals to cross the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing,” Pratt said. The crossing is set to open in November or December.

CDFW confirmed that like mountain lions, the No. 1 cause of death for gray wolves are vehicle collisions.

Pratt surmised that BEY03F avoided the 5 Freeway on her way south, and also Sunday and Monday going into Lebec, east of the 5 and northeast of Gorman. Instead, she’s following swaths of green space that are away from freeways, roadways and development.

Hunnicutt said BEYO3F did cross state Route 58 near Tehachapi, according to evidence from collar signals and biologists who confirmed by checking her footprints. He surmises, but is not sure, she also crossed the Interstate Highway 80.

Wolves were hunted out of existence since 1922 in California. The last wolf was in San Bernardino County, Hunnicutt said.

Wolves were reestablished at Yellowstone National Park, where Pratt studied them. She said she saw many wolves and was not fearful of them.

In 2011, a gray wolf came to California from Oregon. In 2014, the wolves gained protective status and cannot be hunted. There are about 60 gray wolves in the state, experts said.

John Marchwick, 22, a writer with California Wolf Watch, grew an interest in wolves after seeing them in Montana and Yellowstone. He is studying wildlife management at California State Polytechnic University at Humboldt.

After learning about a wolf that traveled 9,000 miles across several states, he began to appreciate their amazing ability to travel vast distances. He said they are rarely a threat to humans.

“They are much more afraid of you,” Marchwick said. “They don’t want to be near people,” he said.

Wolves will hunt deer, elk, beavers and wild boar. Mountain lions primarily hunt deer. In the Beyem Soto Pack where BEY03F is originally from, four wolves were killed by CDFW for attacking livestock but she was not part of the pack at the time. Later on, she joined the Yowlumni Pack in Tulare County, Marchwick said.

It is normal behavior in February, breeding season, for wolves to look for mates, according to Hunnicutt. This wolf is about 5 feet long and weighs 80 pounds — a healthy size for an adolescent wolf, he said. She is in unfamiliar terrain that is different from where she lived in the Sierra Nevada, making hunting more difficult, Hunnicutt said.

At this time, the wolves’ mortality rates are higher, and can die from starvation or getting hit by a car, he said. Yet it is exciting to see a wolf this far south from Montana and Idaho, where they were first reintroduced 30 years ago.

However, their dispersal patterns are unpredictable, Marchwick said. “They do whatever they feel like,” he added.

Pratt said their sense of smell is extremely advanced, so some assume BEY03F is following the scent of a male wolf. She hopes she doesn’t try to cross the 5 Freeway or any other local highway that could end her life.

“Let’s hope she finds a male, soon,” Pratt said.

Where is she heading? Hunnicutt said each morning he checks the collar signals to see where she lands. But he can’t predict where she’s heading.

“I worry about where she ends up. I would never perceive to know the mind of a wolf,” he said.