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OR-54 heads to California, takes GPS collar with it OR-54, a daughter of OR-7, was collared on Oct. 3. [USFWS photo] Friday Feb 2, 2018 at 11:27 AM Feb 2, 2018 at 11:27 AM Mark Freeman Mail Tribune @MTwriterFreeman A collared gray wolf apparently has skipped out on its Rogue Pack family and moved to California, taking with it its GPS-transmitting bling that gave biologists' the ability to track Southern Oregon's largest, most famous and lately predatory pack. OR-54, a 2-year-old in April who is most likely one of the offspring of Rogue Pack patriarch OR-7, apparently crossed from Oregon into California's eastern Siskiyou County on or around Jan. 24, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. GPS coordinates show it has remained in California, suggesting that she may be "dispersing," or striking out on her own in search of a mate or another pack, CDFW reported late Thursday. Its departure means there are currently no Rogue Pack members fitted with an active GPS collar to track the pack's whereabouts. Using OR-54's collar, biologists were able to pin three livestock kills on the pack last month at one ranch between Prospect and Butte Falls. "It's disappointing, particularly with the problems we've been having," says John Stephenson, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist in Bend. "We thought she might disperse. We were concerned about that when we collared her at 1-1/2 (years old)." Biologists faced the same plight in summer 2018 when a battery died in OR-7's collar — the one that allowed the world to follow his famous and historic foray into Southern Oregon and Northern California in search of a mate before finding one and settling in eastern Jackson and western Klamath counties. In 2014, OR-7 fathered the first wolf pack in southwestern Oregon in more than six decades. He and his mate also had litters each of the next three springs. OR-7 will turn 9 years old this spring. The average life span of wolves in the wild is 6 years, fish and wildlife statistics show. Biologists will rely on trail cameras and public sightings to keep track of the pack, Stephenson says. He hopes to join ODFW biologists in capturing and collaring another Rogue Pack member in April or May, when the pack likely will den in their same eastern Jackson County haunts as previous years, he says. Biologists wait until overnight temperatures climb above freezing in the trapping area to reduce injury threats to the captured wolf, Stephenson says. OR-54's locations will continue to be tracked by the fish and wildlife service as well as ODFW, which is sharing those GPS coordinates with its California counterparts as they monitor its movements in California. — Reach Mail Tribune reporter Mark Freeman at 541-776-4470 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MTwriterFreeman.