A male grey wolf leads his four pups to explore their habitat at the Oakland Zoo in Oakland, Calif., on July 1, 2019. A new pack of gray wolves has shown up California's Sierra Nevada, several hundred miles away from any other known population of the endangered species, wildlife officials announced Friday, Aug. 11, 2023.

SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK, Calif. — A new pack of gray wolves has shown up in California’s Sierra Nevada, several hundred miles away from any other known population of the endangered species, wildlife officials announced Friday, Aug. 11.

It’s a discovery to make researchers howl with delight, given that the native species was hunted to extinction in California in the 1920s. Only in the past decade or so have a few gray wolves wandered back into the state from out-of-state packs.

A report of a wolf seen last month in Sequoia National Forest in Tulare County led researchers to spot tracks, and collect DNA samples from fur and droppings, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Researchers concluded that there is a new pack of at least five wolves that weren’t previously known to live in California: an adult female and her four offspring.

The pack is at least 200 miles from the next-nearest pack, which is in Lassen Park in northeastern California, wildlife officials said. A third pack is also based in Northern California.

Gray wolves are protected by both state and federal law under the Endangered Species Act. It is illegal to hurt or kill them.

DNA testing found that the adult female in the new pack is a direct descendant of a wolf known as OR7 that in 2011 crossed the state line from Oregon — the first wolf in nearly a century to make California part of its range, the Department of Fish and Wildlife said.

That wolf later returned to Oregon and is believed to have died there, officials said.

Researchers didn’t find any trace of an adult male in the new pack but genetic profiles of the offspring suggest they are descended from the Lassen Pack, wildlife officials said.

Snake in a toilet: Slithering visitor to Arizona home camps out where homeowner least expects it

TUCSON, Ariz. — Like a scene out of a horror movie, Michelle Lespron returned to her Tucson, Arizona, home to find a snake had set up camp in her toilet.

“I’d been gone for four days and was looking forward to using my own restroom in peace. I lifted up the lid and he or she was curled up,” Lespron told The Associated Press. “Thank God the lid was closed.”

The hiss-sterical encounter happened July 15. But Lespron has been getting messages from family, friends and even people she went to high school with since Rattlesnake Solutions, a Phoenix-based company that removed the snake, recently posted an employee’s video.

The 20-second video shows the snake being pulled out of the toilet bowl and then hissing straight at the camera.

“Everybody has the same reaction: Oh my god that’s my worst nightmare,” she said.

Other people thought it was a prank video and the snake was a prop. “Even my law partner was like ‘Ha ha. Nice gag,’” Lespron, a personal injury attorney, said.

Lespron says her father tried to wrangle the snake that same night but it slithered away. So, she called Rattlesnake Solutions the next morning.

It took the handler — who Lespron calls “my hero” — three tries to get the black and pink coachwhip snake firmly in his grasp. He was able to wrestle the snake with one hand while capturing it all on his cellphone with the other.

The handler later released the snake, which measured between 3 feet and 4 feet long, in a natural habitat elsewhere.

Bryan Hughes, the owner of Rattlesnake Solutions, said it wasn’t the first time his staff have seen a coachwhip snake in a home though it’s rare to find reptiles in residences.

Fortunately for Lespron, the species is non-venomous. Still, she was taking no chances.

After her reptile run-in, Lespron used her guest bathroom for three weeks before feeling comfortable enough to go back to her own. And she no longer enters the bathroom in the dark, and always lifts the lid ever so slowly.

Suburban Detroit woman says she found a live frog in a spinach container

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — A woman in suburban Detroit said she got a scare when she discovered a live frog in a container of spinach purchased from a grocery store.

Amber Worrick, of Southfield, said she bought the sealed Earthbound Farm spinach package last week from a Meijer store, WJBK-TV reported. When she got home, her daughter found a live frog in the container and screamed, Worrick said.

“It was alive and moving,” Worrick said. “Just thank God I didn’t eat the frog.”

Worrick said she immediately returned the package and the frog to the store. Workers there released the frog and gave her a refund, she said.

The TV station’s video showed the frog in a sealed container.

Jennifer Holton, a spokesperson with the Michigan Department of Agricultural and Rural Development, told the Detroit Free Press that the store shouldn’t have released the frog because authorities now don’t know whether it’s native to the state.

She said the department referred the incident to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Meijer officials said the frog was relocated to a new home outdoors.

Officials at California-based Taylor Farms, which owns Earthbound Farm, apologized in a statement and promised to continue to provide “the freshest, finest quality veggies for consumers.”