Young gray wolf detours from Silver State in search of mate

RENO -- A young gray wolf's search for a mate won't take him to the Northern Nevada desert where the annual Burning Man festival is staged.

The wolf known as OR-7 came within 15 miles of the Nevada line near Susanville, Calif., early last week before he decided to head back west away from the nation's most arid state, said Mark Stopher, spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Game.

The wolf had been headed toward the Black Rock Desert, where the eclectic art and music festival is held each summer.

The 2-year-old wolf has wandered hundreds of miles across Oregon and Northern California.

"My interpretation is that he turned back from there (the closest point to Nevada) and returned to a spot he had spent time at because he knew there was food at that location, and he wasn't finding it where he was," Stopher said. The last report placed the wolf in forested western Lassen County, Calif., about 60 miles west of the Nevada border, Stopher added.

He said the wolf "was in drier terrain that wasn't suitable wolf habitat and returned to a location he had been at before. He had no way of knowing what he would find to the east (in Nevada)."

The animal, which was fitted with a GPS tracking collar last spring, was at the southernmost point of his journey to date when he was closest to Nevada. That point was along U.S. Highway 395 about 115 miles north of Reno.