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Study: Eastern US wolves are hybrids with coyotes

William Parcher

Show me the monkey!
William Parcher
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Jul 26, 2005
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Study: Eastern wolves are hybrids with coyotes


Wolves in the eastern United States are hybrids of gray wolves and coyotes, while the region's coyotes actually are wolf-coyote-dog hybrids, according to a new genetic study that is adding fuel to a longstanding debate over the origins of two endangered species...

The study is unlikely to impact the management of the endangered red wolf in North Carolina and the eastern Canadian wolf in Ontario, but it offers fresh insight into their genetic makeup and concludes that those wolves are hybrids that developed over the last few hundred years...

The recent study showed a gradient of hybridization in wolves...

In the West, wolves were pure wolf, while in the western Great Lakes, they averaged 85 percent wolf and 15 percent coyote. Wolves in Algonquin Park in eastern Ontario averaged 58 percent wolf.

The red wolf in North Carolina, which has been the subject of extensive preservation and restoration efforts, was found to be 24 percent wolf and 76 percent coyote.

Northeastern coyotes, which only colonized the region in the past 60 years, were found to be 82 percent coyote, 9 percent dog and 9 percent wolf.
Click to expand...
 
attaboy said:
Interesting! Aside from the red wolf I didn't realize there were any wolves left in the eastern US except maybe for Maine.
Click to expand...


I'm not sure how far west the east actually starts, but if it's the Mississippi River, then the wolves in Northern Wisconsin (apparently 85% wolf/15% coyote) would be counted as Eastern US wolves.

The whole wolf thing is a big deal here. People are blaming them for everything from the poor deer season to AIDS. OK, maybe not AIDS, but listening to some of the misguided rednecks up there would almost make you think wolves are a cross between Darth Vader and The Predator. I believe people think if they complain about them enough, the DNR will open a hunting season on the wolves and these choads will be able to go out and shoot one.
 
We've got a pack wandering around our area, on the Vermont/Quebec border; they get close to the house, sometimes, and you can hear them at night. I *think* I saw one, once, but it was ~100 yards away at twighlight. It was either a wolf-coyote or the Hound of the Baskervilles. Never heard of any attacks, but I still go armed, in the woods.
 
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