A male wolf that made headlines by becoming the first of its species in more than 80 years to be found in the wild in California has crossed back into the Golden State on its determined quest for a mate.

The gray wolf, designated OR7 by wildlife managers, has traveled more than 2,000 miles since leaving its pack in northeastern Oregon last September and heading south, paying its first visit to California in late December.

Last year, gray wolves in Idaho and Montana were removed from the Endangered Species List and placed under state management plans. In Wyoming, they remain federally protected, but only until the last details of a deal between the state and the Department of the Interior can be worked out.

The Interior Department has shamefully given Wyoming everything it wanted, including the right to shoot wolves on sight anywhere in the state except the northwest corner, where a license is required.

For the first time in more than 85 years, a gray wolf has been documented in California. The 2 ½-year-old male, known as OR-7, journeyed more than 700 miles from the northeastern corner of Oregon, crossing into California's Siskiyou County on Wednesday, according to the California Department of Fish and Game. OR-7, and any other wolves that wander into California, are federally protected by the Endangered Species Act.

Thousands of gray wolves in the Midwest will soon be stripped of federal safeguards under the Endangered Species Act, the government said on Wednesday, in a move that could open the animals to state-licensed hunting.

An estimated 4,000 wolves in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and parts of adjacent states are due to lose their status as either endangered or threatened species on January 27, 2012 under the newly issued U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rule.

Data are already routinely collected from radio-collared grey wolves in Yellowstone, and scientists have used this information in their latest study to try to get a better picture of the species' basic responses to a changing environment.

Chicago: Wolves will help humans understand the effect of climate change on endangered animals.
Scientists studying populations of grey wolves in USA’s Yellowstone National Park have developed a way to predict how changes in the environment will impact on the animals’ count, body size and genetics, among other biological traits.

Alaska state officials on Friday were considering a controversial plan to shoot wolves in an effort to boost moose populations in one of the state's top tourist and recreation areas.

An estimated 90 to 135 wolves range across the Kenai Peninsula, south of Anchorage, where under the proposal hunters would shoot the animals from aircraft.

Officials have not settled on the number of wolves they might kill under the plan, which was on the agenda for discussion at a meeting on Friday of the Alaska Board of Game.

A federal court rejected a bid by conservationists for an immediate halt to wolf hunts in Idaho and Montana on Tuesday, but the judges said they would reconsider the request next month.

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and others had asked the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for an emergency injunction on wolf hunts pending an appeal that seeks to restore Endangered Species Act protections to wolves in the two states.

Conservationists asked a federal court on Monday to stop wolf hunts under way in Idaho and Montana until judges rule on an appeal that seeks to restore federal protections to the animals in the two states.

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and others told the U.S. Ninth Circuit of Appeals that more than 200 wolves have been killed in Idaho and Montana so far this year from a population estimated at between 1,300 and 1,600.