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Hunnicutt, gray wolf coordinator for the agency, was trying to track down one of them — the freshly minted Ashpan pack that consists of at least two wolves roaming eastern Shasta County.

The state is home to what may be the densest population of black bears in the world, a growing number of gray wolves and ample mountain lions in some regions.

The dire wolf genome likely differs from that of the gray wolf in millions or tens of millions of ways.

The act has been credited with saving 99% of the species it protects from extinction, including bald eagles, California condors and Mexican gray wolves.

With that ancient DNA, scientists identified gene variants specific to dire wolves and then performed multiplex gene editing with a genome from the gray wolf, dire wolves’ closest living relatives.