Benjamin Spillman

bspillman@rgj.com

The first confirmed wolf to visit Nevada since 1922 caused a stir on social media but likely won’t find much of a life in the Silver State.

The historical record shows Nevada is notoriously inhospitable terrain for wolves. And it suggests the state has little to no chance to ever become home range for viable packs.

“Records show that Nevada is and always has been poor wolf habitat,” stated a Nevada Department of Wildlife paper from 2003 on the history of wolves in Nevada.

The main reason is the prey species required to support viable wolf habitat are few and far between in Nevada, the paper stated.

“Because this primary factor of wolf habitat is and always has been absent, Nevada is not now, nor has it ever been, the likely home of a viable wolf habitat,” the paper’s author wrote.

On March 24, the Nevada Department of Wildlife announced it had confirmed a wolf sighting from November 2016.

The department said it was the first confirmed sighting since 1922.

A video from the sighting on Fox Mountain in northern Washoe County shows the wolf in a sea of sagebrush handling what appears to be a small prey animal.

After the sighting the department collected scat from the location and sent it to the University of Idaho Laboratory for Ecological, Evolutionary and Conservation Genetics which confirmed it was a wolf from the Shasta pack in California.

It’s considered the first confirmed sighting in Nevada since 1922. The 1922 sighting from Elko County confirmed based on 1946 inspection of the carcass, which had been stored at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology in Berkeley, Calif.

Other reported sightings include one in 1916 or 1917 when a trapper reportedly saw the pelt of a wolf taken by another trapper at High Rock Canyon in Washoe County, a reported harvest in 1923 of a wolf near Mountain City, another reported harvest in Elko County in 1931 and a reported harvest in a trap in 1948 or 1949 in the Fort Sage Mountains in Washoe County.

Results of a tracking collar from a California wolf known as OR7 came close to Nevada in 2011 but didn’t cross the border.

Wolves are a protected species under the Endangered Species Act. The act prohibits hunting, harassing or otherwise harming the animals.

Given Nevada’s arid climate and lack of adequate prey it’s likely rare sightings is all the state will get when it comes to wolves.

The NDOW wolf paper stated evidence dating back 11,000 years suggests little to no presence of the animals. Other historical accounts, such as the 1920 book "The Splendid Wayfaring," recounting the 1822-1831 journeys of explorer Jebediah Smith also described the trip east from the Sierra Nevada to Salt Lake in desolate and barren terms with "no sign of vegetation" and "no pleasant valleys rich in beaver."

“Nevada probably has not in that time played host to viable wolf populations,” the NDOW paper stated. “Nevada’s few wolves were wandering and transient wolves, here for short periods of time, with little or no chance of establishing a viable population.”