The lone gray wolf sighted in Siskiyou County this spring wasn’t quite so lonesome as it once appeared. 
 
 On Thursday, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife released photos of five wolf pups with a pair of adults, one of them thought to be the wolf seen in the spring. It is the first confirmed sighting of a gray wolf pack in modern California history. 
 
 The development caught state biologists by surprise – and they’re now scrambling to revise and finalize a wolf-management plan that had been under development since another gray wolf, known as OR7, wandered into California from Oregon in late 2011. OR7’s arrival marked the state’s first confirmed wolf sighting since 1924. At the time, biologists said it was only a matter of time before wolves became established in California – but they didn’t expect it to be so soon. 
 
 “They have beat us to the punch on a couple of occasions now,” Eric Loft, chief of the department’s wildlife branch, told reporters Thursday during a phone briefing. 
 
 Premium content for only $0.99 For the most comprehensive local coverage, subscribe today. SUBSCRIBE NOW 
 
 Thursday’s announcement followed news last month that trail cameras set out by state biologists had photographed a lone wolf – not OR7 – near McCloud in May and July. The agency set out additional cameras in the same area. That resulted in multiple photos showing the five pups and two adults. 
 
 The entire pack has black fur. The pups appear to be about 4 months old and weigh 35 to 40 pounds. Given their proximity to Mount Shasta, state officials are calling the family “the Shasta Pack.” 
 
 “This news is exciting for California,” Fish and Wildlife Director Charlton Bonham said in a prepared statement. “We knew wolves would eventually return home to the state, and it appears now is the time.” 
 
 Not everyone is as thrilled. 
 
 OR7’s travels in California prompted fierce debate about how to manage wolves in the state. Amid opposition from some hunting and ranching groups, the Fish and Game Commission voted last year to protect wolves under the state Endangered Species Act. 
 
 Hunters and ranchers continue to argue that the state needs broad flexibility to manage the species. Hunters contend wolves could deplete their traditional prey, including elk and deer. Ranchers worry state regulations limit their options for protecting livestock. 
 
 Mary and Jim Rickert, who own Prather Ranch in the Siskiyou County town of Macdoel, graze their steers on rangeland in Siskiyou, Shasta and Tehama counties. The pack’s arrival, they said, puts their livestock – and livelihood – at risk. The couple said they would like the state to set up a fund to compensate ranchers for the inevitable wolf-kills. 
 
 “If the public wants wolves,” Jim Rickert said, “maybe they should support the people that are helping feed the wolves.” 
 
 Karen Kovacs, Fish and Wildlife’s point person on wolves, said the pack so far has left alone the livestock grazing in its territory, a checkerboard of public forests and private timber holdings. Wolf advocates maintain that livestock losses in other states where wolves have been re-established are generally minimal, and can be offset by management techniques and reimbursement programs for losses suffered by ranchers. 
 
 The pack’s territory is difficult to access, crisscrossed by unpaved logging roads and private timber holdings blocked by locked gates, Even so, state officials have declined to provide the family’s exact location, concerned someone might to try to find the animals, either as sightseers or to harm them. 
 
 Given the endangered species protection for wolves, anyone caught killing one in California – even a rancher protecting livestock – could face prison time and fines. The only exception is if a wolf poses a direct threat to a person. Kovacs said incidents of “illegal take” of wolves have been rare since U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials in 1995 began reintroducing wolves into the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 One of the questions for biologists is whether the pack is related to OR7. They look substantially different – while OR7 is gray, the Shasta Pack members have black fur with splotches of brown. 
 
 When OR7 arrived in California in December 2011, scientists speculated that he had left his home pack in northeast Oregon in search of a mate. He spent much of 2012 wandering northeastern California in a meandering path that eventually covered thousands of miles. He returned to Oregon in March 2013 but remained near the California border. 
 
 In June 2014, Oregon wildlife officials confirmed OR7 was raising a litter of pups just over the state line in Oregon. At the time, biologists said the finding significantly increased the odds that wolves eventually would repopulate California for the first time since being exterminated by hunters nearly 90 years ago. 
 
 Kovacs said the wildlife department has collected scat from OR7 and droppings from the new pack. An Idaho lab is testing the DNA samples to see if they are related, or to determine where the pack’s bloodlines originate. 
 
 “We’re very interested in where did these wolves come from and who did they descend from,” Kovacs said. 
 
 OR7 got his name because he was the seventh wolf radio-collared in Oregon, allowing biologists to track his location in near real-time. Kovacs said scientists will try to capture one or both of the adult wolves in the Shasta Pack to affix a similar collar on them. 
 
 By the 1930s, wolves had been hunted and trapped to near-extinction across the United States. Under federal protection programs, they were re-established in several states, and the offspring from those efforts have rapidly populated in the West. Oregon discovered its first breeding pair of wolves in 2008. There were 77 animals by the end of 2014. 
 
 Kovacs said California officials have not yet set a formal wolf population goal since it’s unclear how many the state’s habitat can support. But biologists have been impressed with their ability to reclaim their former range. 
 
 “These are very resilient critters,” she said. 
 
 Officials say they will revise the draft wolf-management plan to reflect the family’s arrival. It should be available for public comment by the end of the year. 

 Interested in the stories shaping California? Sign up for the free Essential California newsletter >> 
 
 
 
 "We were really excited if not amazed" at how rapidly wolves have reappeared in Northern California, said Eric Loft, chief of the Wildlife Branch of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. "They have beat us to the punch." 
 
 
 
 Officials said the adult wolves may have dispersed from Oregon's Rogue Pack but won't know the animals' lineage until genetic tests are completed. 
 
 
 
 Karen Kovacs, who has been monitoring the wolves for the state, said the adult wolves in the Shasta Pack are not likely the progeny of OR7, the lone male who wandered Oregon and California in 2011. That male was the first confirmed wolf in California since 1924. 
 
 
 
 OR7 now has a mate and is part of a pack in Oregon. The Oregon-Washington region is home to an estimated 145 wolves in 31 packs. 
 
 
 
 Kovacs said biologists will try to place a radio collar on at least one of the Shasta Pack adults. 
 
 
 
 Wolves in the West have generally thrived since they were reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park in 1995. 
 
 
 
 Wolves were afforded federal protections in 1973, after being hunted to near-extinction. Their presence in a now-urbanized West has been controversial and states have successfully petitioned to manage the animals, creating a sometimes confusing legal patchwork. Wolves do not have federal protection in Alaska, Idaho, Montana and parts of Utah, Oregon and Washington. 
 
 
 
 Determining wolf populations in the Northern Rockies is imprecise, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates there are at least 1,657 wolves in 282 packs in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. Federal biologists consider wolf populations to be stable. 
 
 
 
 Wolves now occupy about 10% of their former range and biologists across the West have marveled at the large carnivore's capacity to adapt to significantly altered landscapes and navigate areas of encroaching human development. 
 
 
 
 Kovacs called the successful reintroduction of wolves "remarkable." 
 
 
 
 "These are very resilient critters," she said. 
 
 
 
 In fact, the most serious impediment to wolf reintroduction has been animosity toward them from some ranchers and hunters, who say wolves kill livestock and reduce game herds on public lands. 
 
 
 
 The discovery of the Shasta Pack comes as deer hunting season begins in Siskiyou County. It is illegal to harm an endangered species, but some light-colored wolves have been killed by shooters who say they mistook the animals for coyotes. 
 
 
 
 No such confusion will be possible with the animals in the Shasta Pack, Kovacs said. "It's going to be pretty hard to look at a black wolf and conclude it's a coyote." 
 
 
 
 julie.cart@latimes.com 
 
 
 
 Times staff writer Bettina Boxall contributed to this report.
– It's the summer of the wolf pack in California, and no we're not talking about another Hangover sequel. A family of gray wolves—two adults and five pups—were yesterday confirmed to be living in the state. The last time the state hosted a pack was the early 1920s, after which the animals were completely eradicated from California, the Los Angeles Times reports. Biologists first got wind of the so-called Shasta Pack, currently roaming remote Siskiyou County near Mount Shasta, in May and June when trail cameras photographed an apparent adult wolf; biologists then found wolf feces and photographed the five pups in recent weeks. The Shasta Pack joins 31 wolf packs in Washington and Oregon and another 282 in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. Biologists suspected the wolves to the north would make their way into the state, but found themselves "really excited if not amazed" at how quickly that happened, per a Department of Fish and Wildlife official. "They have beat us to the punch." Not everyone shares the excitement, the Sacramento Bee reports. Hunters and ranchers, who opposed the 2014 addition of gray wolves to the state's endangered species list, worry the animals will eat elk, deer, and livestock. The state is currently hustling to finish its plan on how to manage the animals, a plan it didn't think it would need quite so soon. According to the Bee, the plan was started after a lone male gray wolf, OR7, in 2011 became the first wolf spotted in California since 1924. He's since returned to Oregon.