Wolf of Encino Finds a Home --and a Friend

Hurricane, the white wolf captured last month running wild in Encino, is about to become a country girl.

She left Los Angeles early Tuesday on a jetliner for Wolf Haven America, a wildlife sanctuary in Tenino, Wash., about 80 miles southwest of Seattle. There, she will share the 60-acre, evergreen-dotted reserve with 36 other wolves, many of whom are also former city dwellers, said Steve Kuntz, president of the nonprofit organization that runs the sanctuary.

“She’s adjusting very well, though she could stand to gain about 25 pounds,� Kuntz said Tuesday afternoon. “I suspect she’s been fed dog food, which doesn’t do a thing for wolves except keep them alive.�

At Wolf Haven, Hurricane will be fed raw meat, just one of the adjustments she will have to make in her new home. Until last month, the 2-year-old wolf lived with actor Sam Jones and his family in a prosperous Encino neighborhood just east of the Lake Encino Reservoir.

Although Jones said he thought of her as “a big white dog,� homeowners complained that she sometimes escaped from his yard where he kept her tied up. Neighbors charged that she rampaged through the area, ripping garbage bags and devouring an 11-year-old girl’s pet rabbit.

Officers from the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation captured Hurricane on April 14 in a bring-em-back-alive trap and took her to the West Valley Animal Shelter.

Jones eventually telephoned, asking for his pet, but animal regulation officers refused because both city and state laws prohibit possession of a wolf without permits from the state Department of Fish and Game and city Department of Animal Regulation, said Thomas Walsh, West Valley district supervisor for the city agency.

Jones has since signed a waiver allowing authorities to take Hurricane to Wolf Haven because he believes that she’ll be happier there, he said Tuesday in a telephone interview from Rome. He said he bought Hurricane as a “mixed-breed husky� from a friend in Mammoth Lakes, but has conceded that he suspected that she had wolf blood.

Although it is a misdemeanor to possess a wolf without a permit--punishable by a maximum of six months in jail--Jones will not be prosecuted by state or city officials, Walsh said. Capt. Roger Reese of the Department of Fish and Game said officers could not prove Hurricane is a wolf without killing her to examine her skull.

But Walsh said the thin, white canine with the long legs and snout is definitely a wolf, Canis lupus. He said he was swamped with calls from people all over the country who were willing to take Hurricane and keep her in their back yards.

“It’s a macho thing to own a wolf, like having a lion on a leash,� Walsh said.

Kuntz said keeping wolves as pets is extremely dangerous because their aggressive instincts may assert themselves no matter how domesticated they appear. He said there are several wolves at the sanctuary who were brought up in cities, including one who was kept in the basement of an apartment house in Texas and another who was found roaming downtown Portland. At Wolf Haven, Hurricane will be kept outdoors in a round pen, 110 feet across, with a sterilized male wolf for company, he said.

“Someone suggested changing her name to Arcticgait because she’s white and has long legs,� Kuntz said. “But I think Hurricane is appropriate because of all the commotion she caused in Los Angeles.�