Gray Wolf Confirmed in Mendocino National Forest As the Species Returns to California

A lone gray wolf has been sighted in the Mendocino National Forest and confirmed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, county officials said at the Sept. 1 Board of Supervisors meeting — the latest sign that a predator hunted out of the state a century ago is finding its way back on its own.

Supervisor Madeline Cline told the board the animal had been "spotted in our county and confirmed by Department of Fish and Wildlife in the Mendocino National Forest." She noted that gray wolves remain listed as endangered under both the California Endangered Species Act and the Federal Endangered Species Act and "lethal take is prohibited." However, when a wolf comes within a quarter mile of livestock or within 100 yards of a dwelling, non-injurious hazing is allowed under CDFW guidance, she said.

Agricultural Commissioner Angela Godwin said her office was working toward a possible "bi-county wolf task force," citing the risk of predation on livestock.

The sighting is a small local chapter of a larger comeback. Wolves are believed to have been wiped out in California in the 1920s. They were first seen again in 2011, when a wolf known as OR-7 came into the state from Oregon. California's first modern pack, the Shasta Pack, formed in 2015. As of July 2026, the state counted a minimum of 50 wolves in 11 confirmed packs, according to CDFW.

The department is emphatic that the animals came back without human help. "Wolves have returned to California on their own by dispersal of individuals from source populations in other states," CDFW says on its website. "The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) did not reintroduce gray wolves to the state."

The agency also stresses that the animal belongs here: "Gray wolves are a native species to California." Because wolves are habitat "generalists," CDFW says, "they can adapt to living in many kinds of habitat" — one reason a lone disperser can turn up far from the established packs of the northeastern counties.

The protections are strict. The "take" of a gray wolf — to "hunt, pursue, harass, catch, capture, or kill" — "is prohibited anywhere in the state," CDFW says, and there is no hunting season for wolves in California. For ranchers, that leaves the non-lethal hazing Cline described as the tool of first resort if a wolf lingers near livestock.