Rare gray wolf found in Bay State (Mass.)

[jpak]

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=173812&ac=PHnws

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — When more than a dozen lambs and sheep were slaughtered on a Shelburne farm last fall, wildlife officials suspected either a wolf that had escaped from captivity or a rogue mutt on a hungry rampage.

But after the culprit animal was killed and examined, they found themselves with a bigger mystery: How did a wild eastern gray wolf, an endangered species absent from the state for more than a century, find its way to western Massachusetts?

Thomas J. Healy, head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Northeast regional office, said Tuesday recent DNA tests at the agency's Oregon labs confirmed that it is the first gray wolf found in New England since a 1993 case near Moosehead Lake in Maine.

The discovery of the 85-pound male wolf may help solidify experts' theories that the endangered species has been migrating south from Canada and repopulating rural parts of New England.

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[cosmik debris]

1. Damn illegal immigrants

send them back where they came from.

:)

[InvisibleTouch]

2. Very likely an escaped pet...

...if he was killing sheep. Wild wolves try to avoid human habitation. It's also possible this was a lone wolf who could find no other prey (I don't know what natural prey populations are like in Mass.), and without a pack to run down something larger, he had no other choice. Sad that they killed him, but doesn't it just figure?

[xchrom]

3. what an interesting story --

wolves despite our best efforts do some how manage to survive -- and while sad for the rancer -- it's heartening to think there may be other easterns out there -- under our radar -- getting along.

[GliderGuider]

4. See, eco-terrorists ARE crossing the border from Canada!

Get the Ministry of Fatherland Security on the case!

[eppur_se_muova]

5. When wolves were wiped out in the NE, coyotes began to fill that eco-niche ...

The coyote is here and well established, but he is considerably different morphologically and behaviorally than his western cousin. It is believed he came from the west, but how did he get here? And, is he still a full blooded true blue coyote? The answer to the first question is we aren’t completely sure and the answer to the second question is a definite no. The eastern coyote differs from the western coyote by the lack of foot-sweat, a larger skull (although smaller than that of a wolf), more weight and less aggressiveness toward its mate or siblings. These are all wolf traits. That makes the eastern coyote sort of an intergrade between the wolf and western coyote and suggests the two have interbred. But how can this be when wolves normally kill coyotes that range into their territory? Because of this wolf intolerance of their smaller relative, coyotes have never been very numerous where there are wolves. But biologists, through DNA analysis, are finding wolf genes in eastern coyotes. Under what circumstances would breeding between these two competitive species have taken place? This is where human meddling enters the picture.

Wolves are very sociable and survive only in packs. In the 19th and early 20th century wolves were persecuted wherever possible in the United States with the goal of exterminating them. As the wolves declined, the coyotes moved into their territory and encountered lone wolves from broken packs. Their mates gone, male wolves mated with the only breeding animals they could find - female coyotes. Mitochondrial DNA testing has shown this was the only way it occurred (male wolves to female coyotes) because female wolves would probably not tolerate the advances of the smaller male coyote. This hybridization likely took place in Ontario. Genetic tests on blood taken from radio collared Algonquin wolves showed hybridization had occurred in 16% of the samples. Minnesota wolves, being more remote and escaping the shooting, did not show any coyote contamination. Then the wolves were given full protection by the Endangered Species Act in the U.S. and in the parks of Canada. Once the packs were reformed and healthy, hybridization with the coyote stopped.

With the increasing deer herds in the mid-Atlantic States, the new coyotes with their wolf genes expanded out of Canada into New York and Pennsylvania where the population slowly increased. Breeding among themselves without the introduction of any more wolf genes, these animals evolved into today’s Eastern coyote, classified as a coyote by biologists, but different than the western variety. Today the eastern coyote is found in every county in the keystone state.

This relatively new animal is still evolving and adapting to the eastern habitat. In the Adirondacks Bill McKibben reports that coyotes are hunting deer in packs. This is typical wolf behavior. Are coyotes doing this in Pennsylvania? Thus far, the evidence for this type of behavior is very scanty. Pennsylvania coyotes are known to prey on fawns in the spring, but coyote-killed adult deer carcasses are rare.

More studies of the eastern coyote needs to be done since the numerous studies of the western coyote do not apply. We really don’t know the eastern coyote very well, principally because he is still evolving. What he will become is anybody’s guess. The coyote is a highly adaptable animal and the Pennsylvania landscape is in a high state of change due to logging, development, invasive species, a large deer herd that is changing the forest composition, and new methods of farming. Faced with this constant flux of environmental conditions, it is difficult to gauge how the coyote will adapt. So is the coyote becoming a wolf? In the Adirondacks he seems headed that way. In Pennsylvania the jury is still out. Can he stay a coyote and replace the wolf? I have little hope conservationists can bring enough land into the public domain in the Northeast to re-introduce the wolf, so whether or not the eastern coyote can fill the ecological niche of the wolf remains a story to be seen in the decades to come.
***
more: http://www.westmorelandconservancy.org/CCWolfCoyote.html