The Californian mystery of the Shasta pack's disappearance

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The Californian mystery of the Shasta pack's disappearance

Post by Koa » Wed Feb 06, 2019 10:25 am

Three and a half years later, the Shasta Pack has vanished from Siskiyou County. All but one of the wolves disappeared within a few weeks of a standoff between ranchers and the pack and after the wolves were spotted feeding on a calf carcass. Just one pup is known to have survived; biologists say DNA tests show it left the state.

State wildlife officials were never able to place a tracking collar on a member of the pack before they vanished. No corpses were found.
Read the full article here: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/envir ... 58150.html

What do you guys think happened?

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Re: The Californian mystery of the Shasta pack's disappearance

Post by Zawki » Wed Feb 06, 2019 2:59 pm

If they were killed (which seems most likely), I can't find many explanations for the bodies vanishing unless someone purposefully moved them elsewhere to cover up what happened.

Whatever did happen, my guess is it relates to livestock.
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Re: The Californian mystery of the Shasta pack's disappearance

Post by LamarWolf » Thu Feb 07, 2019 3:12 pm

It is suspicious that there was no evidence of death and packs don't just disperse like that. I think it is possible that they may have been illegally killed but the pack could have suffered from disease to or been killed while hunting because with no collars it would be hard to locate the bodies. I think the pack died or part of and the rest disperse due to natural and man-made causes.
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Re: The Californian mystery of the Shasta pack's disappearance

Post by alebrije » Tue Feb 12, 2019 2:21 am

I feel as though -- I mean no offense to anyone when I say this -- that majority of the wildlife's problems, disappearances, endangerment/extinction, are mostly to be blamed on us (humans). I do hope none of those poor creatures in the Shasta pack suffered, but I do not doubt that humans are to blame in some way. I lean towards this theory as no bodies were located; it makes me believe someone killed them, for entertainment or protection of livestock, and hid the corpses to cover what had happened.

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Re: The Californian mystery of the Shasta pack's disappearance

Post by Koa » Tue Feb 26, 2019 10:00 pm

alebrije wrote:
Tue Feb 12, 2019 2:21 am
I feel as though -- I mean no offense to anyone when I say this -- that majority of the wildlife's problems, disappearances, endangerment/extinction, are mostly to be blamed on us (humans). I do hope none of those poor creatures in the Shasta pack suffered, but I do not doubt that humans are to blame in some way. I lean towards this theory as no bodies were located; it makes me believe someone killed them, for entertainment or protection of livestock, and hid the corpses to cover what had happened.
I think that's just an obvious fact of our existence, though. I do agree that the issue of bodies not yet being found makes their disappearance more suspicious.

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Re: The Californian mystery of the Shasta pack's disappearance

Post by Phasoli » Wed Feb 27, 2019 5:17 pm

How curious. I do hope that they weren't killed illegally. I'd like to think that the lack of bodies and the pack's curious disappearance is due to their natural movement rather than the effect of a drastic event. With people fearing for their cattle, it does seem likely that they were probably killed. I hope we're all proven wrong, though, and they turn up soon.
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Re: The Californian mystery of the Shasta pack's disappearance

Post by DinoDogDude209 » Sat Mar 02, 2019 5:04 pm

To me, the evidence appears to be pointing toward human involvement in their disappearance. The fact that no bodies were found is quite suspicious. I'm assuming that at least one of them was killed by a rancher or hunter, and the carcass/carcasses would have probably been hidden or destroyed to prevent the perpetrators from being caught.

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Re: The Californian mystery of the Shasta pack's disappearance

Post by duskypack » Thu Mar 07, 2019 1:11 pm

It seems to be another case of a “Shoot, Shovel, Shut Up”-type occurrence but I can’t help but hold out hope that another former Shasta pack member is still alive somewhere. I’d imagine it would be hard locate and kill an entire wolf pack without any evidence, but it seems it has happened (why else would they have disappeared so close to their first depredation?). They’ve been gone for a while now; I find it interesting they’re still being brought up and investigated.
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