Pack Status: Active. Designated in 2017.
The Lassen Pack is the second-known wolf family to make their home in California in nearly 100 years. The pack’s home range is an expansive ~500 square-mile territory in southern Lassen and northern Plumas counties.
The pack’s original breeding female, LAS01F, was first spotted by trail camera in August 2015. In February 2016, biologists saw tracks that appeared to show two wolves traveling together. One of them was a male, CA08M, determined to have been born into Oregon’s Rogue Pack in 2014, making him one of the pups in OR7’s first litter. LAS02M was never collared, however, the female, LAS01F was collared in California in late June 2017. Genetic testing shows she is not closely related to Oregon wolves and likely dispersed to California from the northern Rocky Mountains.
Four pups were born into the Lassen Pack in 2017. At least three of them survived into 2018, when the breeding female had another litter, this time of five pups.
In September 2018, the carcass of a yearling female from the Lassen Pack was found, and the matter remains under investigation.
The Lassen family raised five pups in 2019. The original breeding male, LAS02M, has not been detected with the pack since spring 2019. A new adult male (LAS16M) began traveling with the pack as early as June 2019. LAS16M’s origin is currently unknown, and he is not related to other known California wolves. He has sired the pack’s litters since 2020.
In 2020, LAS16M sired a litter of five pups with LAS01F, the pack’s original breeding female, as well as a litter of four pup with a two-year-old female (LAS09F). The original founding female of the pack, LAS01F, has not been detected since the fall of 2020. Her daughter, LAS09F, has been the sole breeding female of the Lassen Pack since 2021.
Near the end of summer 2020, LAS13M, a collared yearling, dispersed from the pack. He traveled through Lassen and Modoc counties before entering Oregon in early October 2020.
In 2021, LAS09F and LAS16M raised five pups. In the summer of 2021, the Dixie Fire burned significant portions of the pack’s summer range, including pup-rearing areas. Luckily, the breeding pair and all five known 2021 pups survived the fire. The adult wolves were keeping the pups in a small, unburned grassy area near a water source surrounded by burned trees.
Five more pups were born in 2022, four in 2023, and five in 2024.
Photos
Videos
This remote video capture shows a female adult, a yearling, and three pups walking through coniferous woods in Lassen County. At 1:00, the pups can be heard yipping and then howling. CDFW video.
