[pct-l] Wolves in the Sierra?

[Josh]

Great & exciting story!  I just wish more of the dates U mentioned were more
recent. :(  But if there were a few around 12yrs ago, there should be a
significant population by now. YAY!
 

-----Original Message-----
From: pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net [mailto:pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net]
On Behalf Of Georgi Heitman
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 10:07 PM
To: christopher.kopp at gmail.com; pct-l at backcountry.net
Subject: [pct-l] Wolves in the Sierra?

I don't know...
Wolves in the southern Cascades?  I think yes...at least there were in 1993
or 4, because FireWalker and I saw an article(very small, maybe two lines
total, down at the bottom of a page) in our weekly Inter Mt. News stating
that seven mated pair had be released on and/or around Badger Mt....think
Badger Flats at the northern edge of  Lassen Natl Pk. here, folks.
A year or two later a neighbor told us that he'd read that three more pair
had also been released in the same area.
Around that time, FireWalker and I saw a very large, dun-colored critter
grazing (or something) in the field next to the driveway coming into the
Hideaway (our home).
We stopped in the driveway, debated what it might be, it was too early in
the spring to be a returning deer, too big to be one of our local coyotes or
a neighbors dog but with it's head down, it was impossible to tell, so I
opened my car door and slammed it hard.  Its head flew up... it was the
biggest canine either of us had ever seen, please note, I didn't say 'dog'.
It took off, didn't run like a coyote, with front legs that are/seem shorter
than it's hind ones...it ran more dog-like, but it wasn't any of our
neighbors dogs.
Later, during the summer, as I was coming home after dark on a bright
moon-lit night, as I started to slow down  to enter our driveway, I glanced
in my rear-view mirror in time to see a very large canine, very light
colored in the  moon light, run across the road behind me.  I got
goose-bumps, and it takes a lot for that to happen to me,  but I think I
knew what I saw was out of the ordinary.
A neighbor saw a similar colored creature run in front of his pickup as he
drove home after dark a few nights later.
He said it was NO dog!!  That was prior to 1997, because I was coming home
from work at the little store by the Old Station P.O. and 1997 was the last
year I worked there.

FireWalker and I got our hot tub in 1996 or so.  Almost immediately after
that, as we'd sit in it at night, F.W. began asking me if I could hear the
very low howl that something was making.  I'm hard of hearing and didn't get
hearing aids til '98, so at that point, I had to say 'no'.  But what I did
hear after he'd ask me that question was total silence.
Very unusual, because coyotes were usually singing and we had a neighbor
with many loud dogs that barked in tune with the coyotes.  Once I got my
hearing aids I could hear what F.W. was talking about, a very deep howl, off
toward the 1000 Lake Wilderness to our north.  From the moment that howl was
heard, every coyote and every dog shut up, crawled back into it's den, dog
house, whatever, and was not heard from again that night.  Since the dogs
were close enough that even w/o hearing aids, they could keep me awake at
night, I wished whatever critter was responsible for shutting them up would
make itself known more often than just once or twice a week.  We'd have
gotten a lot more sleep.  It was as if our local coyotes and dogs knew that
whatever made that sound was bigger than they were, and maybe deadly.
Unfortunately, we haven't heard that howl in years....tho in 2007, a hiker
well-known on the trail said that while hiking thru Lassen N.P. the hiker
looked up a side trail and saw a huge canine, black, if I recall and sort of
scruffy looking, but definitely huge and definitely not a dog!
There was no doubt in that hiker's mind...that critter was a wolf.
They stared at each other and went their separate ways.
 Wolves in the southern Cascades?  I think so!
FireFly
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