(Not the guy who killed it)
A wolf was killed in Hart County, Kentucky, this past March. The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources released this statement:
Federal officials recently confirmed that an animal taken by a hunter near Munfordville in Hart County on March 16 is a gray wolf.
A DNA analysis performed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Wildlife Research Center in Colorado determined the 73-pound animal was a federally endangered gray wolf with a genetic makeup resembling wolves native to the Great Lakes Region. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Forensics Laboratory in Oregon confirmed the finding.
How the wolf found its way to a Munfordville hay ridge at daybreak in March remains a mystery. Wolves have been gone from the state since the mid-1800s.
Great Lakes Region wolf biologists said the animal’s dental characteristics – a large amount of plaque on its teeth – suggest it may have spent some time in captivity. A largely carnivorous diet requiring the crushing of bone as they eat produces much less plaque on the teeth of wild wolves.
Hart County resident James Troyer took the animal with a shot from 100 yards away while predator hunting on his family’s farm. Troyer, 31, said he had taken a coyote off the property just two weeks earlier.
But when he approached the downed animal he noticed it was much larger. “I was like – wow – that thing was big!” he recalled. “It looked like a wolf, but who is going to believe I shot a wolf?”
Because a free-ranging wolf has not been seen in the state for more than a century, biologists were skeptical at first. However, wildlife officials were aware that a few radio-collared northern wolves have wandered as far south as Missouri in the past decade.
Wolves resemble coyotes, except they are much larger. From a distance, the size difference is difficult to determine.
Troyer convinced Kevin Raymond, a wildlife biologist for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, to look at the animal. Once Raymond saw the animal was twice the size of a coyote, he contacted furbearer biologist Laura Patton, who submitted samples to federal officials for DNA testing.
Because state and federal laws prohibit the possession, importation into Kentucky or hunting of gray wolves, federal officials took possession of the pelt. Since this is the first free-ranging gray wolf documented in Kentucky’s modern history, federal or state charges are not expected because there were no prior biological expectations for any hunter to encounter a wolf.
This animal may have been introduced by someone who had a pet wolf and got tired of it.
Or it could have walked from Great Lakes population into Kentucky. There was a wolf from this population that was killed in Missouri last year that clearly wandered down on its own volition. And another one was killed in the same state in 2010.
It is interesting that all three of these wolves would be Great Lakes wolves. That population is actually the healthiest population in the Lower 48, and they clearly are moving south.
My question is why are none of these animals reported in places like Illinois, Iowa, or Indiana, which lie between the core wolf habitat states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Kentucky and Missouri?
If they are dispersing this far south someone has to be seeing them in those states, too, but I never hear of anyone shooting a big coyote that turns out to be a wolf in any of those states.
So it’s an interesting question if this wolf came to Kentucky on its own.
But someday, there will be wolves in Kentucky. There will be no argument about where they came from.
The wolf is one species that is very likely to thrive in the twenty-first century, provided we don’t lose our minds and start trying to exterminate them again.
And that’s the big if.
But if we just leave them alone, they will return.
They are doing so in Germany and much of Western Europe right now.
It will just take some time.
And restraint.
Even living in Australia, and never having seen a live wolf in my life, surely it’s not that hard to see the differences? Hopefully, they will one day return and prosper in the places where they once roamed.
The coyotes in the Eastern US look like wolves and are quite a bit larger. They are mixed– both wolves and coyotes have echanged genes over a large swathe of a continent, so it’s hard to tell them apart unless you’re looking at a larger Northern Rockies wolf juxtaposed with a small Western coyote.
These are all Eastern coyotes: http://i497.photobucket.com/albums/rr337/motega_photos/wolves%20or%20coyotes/55.jpg
Two things are interesting to note, James’s hunting partner has stated that in 33 Years of hunting he has never got a coyote over 47 pounds…that’s a lot less than 73 pounds!The shooter, James Troyer, is Amish and one could hardly be surprised if his Amish brethren considered trophy shots next to the wolf a little prideful :)
Note the pictures states “not the guy who killed it” as most Amish avoid the pride of having their picture taken with animals they harvest by having a friend that is not Amish do so in their place. Maybe it’s possible through migration along rivers or large creeks even that this species could make it to this area without first being seen or taken in a state between here and there. Also, how often are these animals seen and with the ressemblence to their smaller cousin species could easily be confused just through a sighting along the journey to where it took its last steps. Even coyotes with their healthy population in this area are not necessarily seen every day unless you farm the wide open flatlands of the western part of the state possibly; even then it may not be more than once a week or every two weeks. It seems likely that the migration route, if that is what happened, would stay near the river due to the availability of prey most commonly found near or close to big water sources similar to that of the bald eagle migration routes another type of predator. Why not wolves? Also, it is the way of nature for wild animals to steer clear of people and/or civilization when given the opportunity. Plus the vast cropland of Indiana and Illinois in combination with wooded terrain could easily allow this animal the opportunity to avoid death, capture, or the chance of being seen and identified as something other than a coyote. And, only when prey is limited or in low numbers do these animals sometimes meander and stumble upon some fenced in ‘sitting ducks’ /goats,etc. so to speak to find an easy meal which may then become a routine given the right circumstances. So, the likelihood of this migration while not great seems very possible in my opinion. However, supposed evidence does point toward the possibility or maybe the more likely conclusion that at some point captivity or human intervention may have played a role in this occurence.
Do you think it was a release?
I don’t know. It’s 50/50.
In Vermont there’s an open season on “coyotes” (which here are actually a wolf – coyote hybrid), they can be shot any time of the year, yet wolves are protected. A 90 lb. wolf from a Canadian population was killed in northern Vermont a few years ago, and it was assumed the animal had migrated south. I’m pretty well versed in the phenotypes of wild canids, yet I have seen wild “coyotes” here and in the Adirondack Mountains of New York that looked like a wolf hair for hair. The only reason I labeled them as coyotes in my mind was because it was so unlikely to find a pure wolf in either state.
Anyone who thinks its easy to estimate the size of an animal in the wild has never tried it, and most of those who claim they can are usually deluding themselves. One night many years ago a “friend’ stopped at my house to tell me a giant wolf had crossed the road in front of his vehicle about 50 miles from where I lived. Though it was night and snowing heavily, this seasoned hunter claimed the animal weighed at least 150 lbs. I took him out onto my front porch, flicked on the flood lights that would light up my kennel area in the forest at the end of my house, and called a 15/16 wolf out of his house. As this long-legged, massive looking animal trotted around his 50 ft. X 50 ft. kennel not 100 feet away I asked my acquaintance how much he thought it weighed. He shook his head incredulously and said, “Oh, that thing has to go a good 200 lbs.” I had just had this animal at the vets a few days before, and though his six inch long stand-off coat made him look huge, he tipped the scales at just 90 lbs. When I pointed this out to my friend he couldn’t believe it, but that’s the way with many hunters in the woods; a 12 lb. fisher becomes a 50 lb. fisher “cat’, a 20 lb. bobcat becomes a 150 lb. mountain lion, and in this case a 90 lb. wolf becomes 200 lbs. under careful observation. So the coyote this guy got a fleeting glance of was probably no heavier than 70 lbs. (a big Vermont coyote), but probably not even that.
This leads me to question how any (at least eastern) state can try to protect wolves when allowing free hunting of “coyotes”; so few people can tell the difference, maybe not even me. I have the same question about crows and ravens. We have a crow season in Vermont, but ravens are protected. But I have yet to find one of the many hunters I know who can immediately identify which species it is flying over when I point to one and ask them what it is. I believe this is a serious problem most state fish & game departments and legislatures aren’t addressing.
There was a lot of gene flow between wolves and coyotes. The Great Lakes population has some coyote blood. This is the best study today that has looked at how much genetic material has been exchanged between wolves and coyotes: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149496/
Not all of the crossbreeding happened as a result of human persecution of wolves. The Great Lakes wolf population had coyote genes introduced during the Pre-Columbian period.
All the problems that Vermont has, West Virginia has. We have a crow season and full protection for ravens.
We have an even more complicated issue with black vs. turkey vultures. Turkey vultures are pure scavengers and are far more common west of the Blue Ridge. Every once in a while a small flock or an individual of black vultures comes west, and there instant panic because all the media and the farm organizations have told people that black vultures attack newborn calves and lambs. But it gets exaggerated that they attack full-sized sheep and cows and then children!
And people start shooting birds that look like black vultures, which includes juvenile turkey vultures. Some turkey vulture adults are really quite large. They get gunned too.
It’s all illegal, but the paranoia and exaggeration is pretty deep.
Not to disagree with you but I don’t think the last word on North American canid taxonomy has been written. Before all this DNA stuff came along it was thought by some scientists that perhaps the wolf and coyote populations represented an evolutionary cline with the “red wolf” representing an intermediate form. After all these species are fully interfertile, unlike some mammalian hybrids where females may be fertile but male hybrids are sterile.
By comparison one only has to look at recent work done in tiger taxonomy. I once thought the tiger was pretty well understood as a species with several subspecies. But no! Some researchers propose subdividing the tiger into two or even three species. The extinct Caspian tiger may not be a valid subspecies but an extension of the Siberian tiger population. A new subspecies has been identified as the Malay tiger with some dispute about the naming of it by the Malaysian government. The Wikipedia pages on “tiger” and “Malay tiger” have some good links to scholarly papers published on the subject. Try these links for starters and you will see what I mean. Our understanding of what makes a “good species” or “good subspecies” is evolving. Ha ha.
http://arts.anu.edu.au/grovco/tiger%20SEAsia%20Mazak.pdf
http://research.amnh.org/vz/ornithology/pdfs/1998c.%20tiger%20conservation.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC534810/?tool=pmcentrez
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2624500/
I think there may be an evolutionary cline between wolves and golden jackals. There are “golden jackals” that have actually been found to be a type of wolf in Africa, and these do cross with golden jackals on occasion:
http://retrieverman.net/2012/08/14/the-discovery-of-wolves-in-senegal-and-a-new-species-complex-in-the-genus-canis/
I’ve seen those very papers on Amur and Caspian tigers, and at one time, I thought it might be possible to introduce Amur tigers to that region. But Amur tigers aren’t doing that well.
I thought the red wolf was actually a very old subspecies of wolf that had some coyote in it. It looks a lot like the Indian wolf, which some suggest is a species (but I’m very skeptical), but the Indian wolf is the oldest extant subspecies– until they found the one in Africa.
I don’t think the bulk of the evidence on the red wolf suggests that it is what people say it is. There is a lot of wishful thinking about it being something unique.
I also don’t think people understand how common hybridization is in the wild. One reason we don’t have a good idea of the phylogeny and taxonomy of cattle species is they’ve interbred quite a bit, and these animals are far more distantly related to each other than dogs are to wolves and than wolves are to coyotes. Duck species present exactly the same problem.
The interesting thing is that there were wolf-like coyotes in the US during the Pleistocene, but these got replaced by true wolves as they spread deeper into the continent.
There are more discoveries to be found, but I think they’ve pretty much got the “red wolf” nailed as a recent hybrid.
Restraint is one of those things that people do seem to be lacking these days.
I take it no one has encountered roaming radio collared wolves? I agree, it’s a bit odd for them to be at point A and point C and no one sees them anyplace in between. OTOH, I noted that the article you reference says “Since this is the first free-ranging gray wolf documented in Kentucky’s modern history, federal or state charges are not expected” — nice of them to decide not to charge the guy when there is clearly no intent on his part to shoot a wolf. It might be that in other places, it’s “shoot, shovel, shut up” because once it’s realized it’s pretty darn big for a coyote, no one wants trouble from the Feds or State enforcers.
If U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has its way then wolves will be de-listed from Endangered Species list and it will be free for all. Forget about dispersal, there will be no wolves left in the core state
Already unethical hunters are on the killer spree. In pure contempt of the pro-wolf lobby and the researchers, they are specially taking down collared wolves.
Although most ranchers in Wyoming, for example, are keeping LGDs to protect their flocks against wolf predation, there are some unethical ranchers who are asking the local agencies to kill wolves supposedly preying on their sheep after they (the ranchers) leave dead carcasses and afterbirths on the grazing lands on purpose to attract them.
Interesting
Re him shooting it, I guess its an expectation thing. E;g you expect to see a coyote not a wolf and act accordingly! I’f I saw a wolf (not likely I’m in the UK) I would just think wolf like dog!
Re hunting and dispersal. What do they do in states wolves are in but coyote hunting is allowed? I assume accidents will happen and it has to be judged on a case by case basis.
Re the wolf being a pet. Would a wolf living on small prey have the plaque build up as the bones are smaller?
Adam
It is case-by-case. Generally, if you’re in known wolf country, hunters are instructed on what to look for.
I am wondering that if the wolf were living on garbage, it might have developed the same amount of plaque, but I’ve not seen any analysis on Italian garbage-eating wolves and their plaque levels to get a satisfactory answer.
There have been some wolves killed in the last few years in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. I think that we have discussed some of here in your blog but I don’t recall specifics offhand. I think that the states’ F & W departments will have to come up with some official policies pertaining to wolves now, including hunter education about ways to differentiate wolves from coyotes (and dogs).
I once spoke at the Capital here in Vermont as an opponent to a bill that would allow the state to put a bounty on coyotes. There were several speakers at the State House that day, both for and against the bill. One speaker against it said he was worried that a bounty on coyotes would make it an “open season” on farm dogs. Another speaker in favor of a bounty made the comment “I don’t think we have to worry about responsible hunters mistaking a dog for a coyote.” A following speaker against the bounty replied, I’m afraid that as long as “responsible hunters” are mistaking 1000 lb. Holstein cows for 150 lb. deer they might be inclined to mistake a dog for a coyote.” The bill didn’t pass.
I used to be a hunter, and the one thing that many non-hunters don’t realize is the split-second of time you sometimes have to make a decision to shoot or not. A responsible hunter will not take such a shot, there’s just too much to calculate in that short of time (not only what the running animal you see actually is, but what’s beyond the animal, because unlike on TV, even if a bullet hits an animal or human it’s likely to continue on through and is capable of doing damage and killing for a couple hundred yards). But even amongst the many experienced hunters I know, there might be a large percentage of them who are of questionable judgement in this area. And when it comes to something as hated by the deer hunting community as coyotes (they eat deer), lead usually starts flying at the first sight of a coyote-like animal. I’m considered something of the wild canid expert in my area, and have had several people bring the “coyote” they’d killed to me so I could tell them what they had. In most cases they brought coyotes with varied amounts of wolf characteristics (and even domestic dog traits such as rear dewclaws), but in one case a guy brought me a 15 lb. grey fox. Another time I went to the local fur buyers fur shed to see the “wolf” someone had trapped and sold him. It took me about a two minutes (and only that long because the fur buyer had to have his “skinner’ turn the hanging hide fur side out) to identify that animal as a friend’s husky/shepherd dog. This six foot long hide had come off a dog named “Runt” (you can really stretch out a hide). So species/target identification is going to be a difficult problem to handle, since even I have had glimpses of some sort of canid disappearing through the brush (but still giving me the time for a “snap shot” -a legitimate local term- if I’d had a gun and been so inclined) and leaving me (figuratively) scratching my head and thinking, “What the hell was that?”
They are proposing something similar here in WV, and I’ve expressed similar concerns to my dad who is a county commissioner.