The Oregon-born wolf known as OR93 near Yosemite, California in February 2021. The wolf touched biologists when it traveled as far south as California, but was found dead. after apparently being hit by a car.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife via AP
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California Department of Fish and Wildlife via AP
The Oregon-born wolf known as OR93 near Yosemite, California in February 2021. The wolf touched biologists when it traveled as far south as California, but was found dead. after apparently being hit by a car.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife via AP
A long-range gray wolf, the first to walk through Southern California in more than a hundred years, has been found dead near a road more than an hour outside downtown Los Angeles, wildlife officials said. drive north.
Looks like it was hit by a car.
The male wolf, named OR93 when it was fitted with a GPS collar by wildlife officials in his home state of Oregon, left the pack near Mount Hood two years ago. It has garnered followers and fans in the wildlife community as it heads south, crossing states and highways to its destination. regions of California Haven’t seen a wolf since 1922.
California, like much of the United States, is a habitat for wolves. Before colonization, large predators covered much of the continent before being hunted, trapped, and killed to near extinction by European settlers. Dissected populations exist now suffocating, in many areas, by an ever-growing road network.
The Department of Transportation estimates that 365 million animals are killed on the roads of the United States every year, more than the total number of people in the country. The recovery of populations of large carnivores such as wolves, which are trying to re-establish areas, is at particularly grave risk.
Gray wolf populations are recovering across many parts of the northern United States.
David P Gilkey / NPR
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David P Gilkey / NPR
Gray wolf populations are recovering in many parts of the northern United States.
David P Gilkey / NPR
Young male gray wolves are known to travel great distances after leaving the pack. Wanderlust has a biological purpose.
By moving away from its family, a wolf is more likely to find a mate with a different genetic makeup. Inbreeding is thought to be the cause a population crisis of gray wolves on Isle Royale in Lake Superior. Efforts to remove grizzly bears from the list of endangered species in the Northern Rockies have been thwarted by legal challenges based in part on “connectivity between species”.
In Southern California, wildlife officials have found abnormal in a population of inbreeding mountain lions, bordered by the area’s busy roads.
Early next year, the state will break ground on a six-lane Highway 101 overpass designed to accommodate big cats and other wildlife, after years of efforts by the wildlife advocate. Similar efforts are underway across the country, and the larger effort to provide wildlife safe passage has both a big boost in the recently passed infrastructure bill of the United States of America. President Biden.
It allocates $350 million over the next five years to state, local and tribal governments to build bridges or tunnels for wildlife. Another $400 million will go toward removing obstacles like dams, which limit fish and invertebrate populations.
“Building wildlife crossings will reduce collisions between wildlife,” said Mike Leahy, director of wildlife hunting and fishing policy at the National Wildlife Federation. means and is an important conservation strategy to help wildlife survive the impacts of climate change and development.
More a million species globally endangered, many species within decades, because of human activities. World leaders will gather next year to approve a plan to slow the biodiversity crisis. Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, said positive action was needed to slow the collapse of nature.
“Do we want to avoid another COVID-19?” she tell NPR, last year. “We preserve and protect nature and biodiversity, otherwise we will be miserable like we are now.”
