Experts say<\/a> it’s the first time we\u2019ve seen one of these carnivores in L.A. County in a century.<\/p>\nThe young gray wolf is officially tagged as BEY03F. But Paula Ficara, executive director of the Apex Protection Project, has a better name.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone has decided to call her bae, which is really cute because that\u2019s her number: B-E-Y. So for Valentines she can be your Bae: B-A-E,\u201d Ficara said with a chuckle.<\/p>\n
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Ficara\u2019s nonprofit has the mission of protecting captive-born wolves and wolf dogs, as well as wolves in the wild. They have a sanctuary in Acton, where 23 wolves live.<\/p>\n
She said people have had a lot of questions about BEY: Is she sick? Is she a lone wolf?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth is that … the wolves are coming down. They\u2019re migrating naturally back to their original habitat. … She\u2019s a young adult and she\u2019s decided to go off in the hopes of starting her own family,\u201d Ficara said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not impossible but unlikely that she\u2019ll find a mate this far south. Ficara said she\u2019s likely to go back home to Northern California if she can\u2019t spot a partner within a couple weeks or so.<\/p>\n
Steve Wastell, Ficara\u2019s husband of 30 years and director of operations at Apex, explained their biggest concern while the wolf is in L.A. County.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last wolf that came down, almost this far, on his way back up, ended up being hit by a car. So that\u2019s one of the biggest things that could happen to her,\u201d Wastell said.<\/p>\n
A male gray wolf, OR93, traveled as far down as Ventura County in 2021. But sadly, the wolf was hit by a vehicle and killed along Interstate 5 in Kern County.<\/p>\n
It’s part of the reason why Ficara and Wastell started the “Wolf Crossing” campaign. They\u2019re encouraging people to post homemade wolf crossing signs at wildlife corridors, trailheads and other places where roads meet wild.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, not everyone is going to slow down on the highway. But just to bring a little more awareness that there may be a wolf crossing,\u201d Wastell said.<\/p>\n
One of their first wolf crossing participants? A group of school-age kids who stopped by the sanctuary recently to learn about wolves and make a sign of their own to post in their area.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had just met most of our wolves here, face to face. And they were super excited about protecting and super excited about this wolf being down here. So they were like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it!’\u201d Wastell said.<\/p>\n
Wastell and Ficara are encouraging everyone to make a sign and post to social media in the hopes it will make L.A. a little more hospitable for our visitor from the north.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A gray wolf was seen in LA County for the first time in 100 years. These folks want…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[47197,13489,79,201,218193],"class_list":{"0":"post-469705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-gray-wolf","9":"tag-los-angeles-county","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife","12":"tag-wolves-in-california"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}