February 28, 2015

 2-28-15
This one is for Gale, who has a wolf dog!

I've drawn a lot of mammals that live in California, but I've never drawn a wolf. Technically there are no wild wolves in California since the 1940's when the last wolf was killed in a government extermination program. Now the Gray wolf is considered an endangered species and is protected. 

In 2012, a lone male gray wolf, named OR-7, or Journey, traveled 1000 miles from Northern Oregon to Northern California to look for love. He didn't find a mate, so he traveled back into Oregon where he did find a mate and settled in Southern Oregon where they had pups. Now there is hope that the species will proliferate and filter back down into California. Of course there are farmers with livestock that might feel otherwise. 

While living in Colorado, I thought that a wolf ran across the road that I was driving on at dusk, but if it was a wolf and not a large coyote dog, it might have been a Mexican wolf. I was living in the South Eastern corner of the state and while Colorado does not officially have wild wolves, the Gray wolf has been sighted in Northern Colorado. There are several packs of Mexican wolves in New Mexico and Arizona, so with all of the wild open spaces in South Eastern Colorado, it would not be surprising for Mexican wolves to show up in that area. 

My only other encounter with wolves was at a wolf rescue in Paso Robles. They are larger than you would think, about 100 lbs, beautiful and with an intelligence behind their eyes that makes me happy not to have ever met one in the wild!