2 new sets of gray wolf pups confirmed in Oregon

Summer 2016 pup surveys by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and ODFW confirmed at least two pups for the Rogue Pack this year. These images were caught on remote cameras in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest on July 12, 2016 and are courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Kale Williams | The Oregonian/OregonLive

 

By Kale Williams | The Oregonian/OregonLive
on July 29, 2016 

 

After being removed from the endangered species list, gray wolves in Oregon continue to rebound as the Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Thursday that two new litters of wolf pups have been confirmed after they were caught on trail cameras.

 

The two litters — one believed to be sired by celebrity wolf OR-7 in the Rogue-Siskiyou National Forest and the other by his brother, OR-3, in Lake County — mark the continued proliferation of a species that once roamed the entire state in large numbers, but was effectively eradicated in the mid 1900s in a government-sponsored attempt to appease livestock farmers.

 

"It's incredibly exciting that Oregon's wolves are starting to find their way back to places this remarkable species once called home," Amaroq Weiss, West Coast wolf organizer for the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. "The fact that individual wolves are coming into this same general area tells us how important it is to keep wildlands available for continued safe passage, and to keep legal protections in place for wolves at both the state and federal levels."

 

OR-7, who got his name because he was the seventh wolf to be captured and fitted with a radio collar in Oregon, was the first to establish a pack, known as the Rogue Pack, in the western part of the state after more than 60 years.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife released details Monday of its annual wolf count, conducted at the beginning of the year. Oregon gained 33 wolves in 2015, bringing the state's total known wolf population up to 110.

His brother, OR-3, was fitted with a radio collar that stopped working and biologists assumed he had died until he showed up on a trail camera with his distinctive ear tags. He ended up pairing with OR-28, a female fitted with a radio collar, and the two were dubbed the Silver Lake Wolves.

Their recent litter marks the first known pups for 8-year-old OR-3.

"When an 8-year-old wolf has his first-known litter of pups and when his 8-year-old brother is confirmed to have had his third litter, it's a moment of awe and wonder," said Weiss. "Oregon killed off its wolf population by the 1940s but state and federal protections have allowed these magnificent animals to make a comeback, and those protections should remain in place until wolves are fully recovered."

The gray wolf lost its place on the Oregon endangered species list in 2015 after the animals reached a population milestone — four pairs had bred for the third straight year — which set in motion a process to remove their protections.

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission on Monday voted to remove the animal from the list in a move that changes little about current wolf management but opens up the possibility for a controlled wolf hunt in the future.

Because of state's wolf program, it remains illegal to kill a wolf except under very limited circumstances, but advocates argued that the removal of protections put the species at greater risk to poachers.

A move to block the removal failed earlier this year, but the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups have filed a legal challenge to the delisting.

Wildlife officials have said that the state can support up to 1,400 gray wolves, but Oregon's population currently stands at around 150 who only inhabit roughly 12 percent of land suitable for the species.

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Wolf born in Silver Lake area

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service OR 3 and a pup of the Silver Lake wolves. The photo via a remote cam was taken June 22 in Lake County.

Published Jul 28, 2016 

Oregon has a new baby wolf.

A pair of wolves in western Lake County, the “Silver Lake wolves,” have produced at least one pup this year, according to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. The parents are an 8-year-old male from the Imnaha pack and a 3-year-old female from the Mt. Emily pack. 

The male had been collared but that type of device did not automatically transmit location information, and wildlife managers had largely lost track of him after fall 2011, the department said. His collar no longer works. The female has a GPS collar. Wildlife managers have used remote camera images to determine that the pair had at least one pup this year. 

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Princeton-UCLA study finds gray wolves should remain protected !!!!

Public Release: 27-Jul-2016

Princeton University

Researchers from Princeton University and the University of California-Los Angeles who investigated the genetic ancestry of North America's wild canines have concluded that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's scientific arguments for removing gray wolves from endangered species protection are incorrect.

The study, which contradicts conventional thinking, finds that all of the continent's canids diverged from a common ancestor relatively recently and that eastern and red wolves are not evolutionarily distinct species but a hybrid of gray wolf and coyote ancestry. The study will appear in the journal Science Advances.

Gray wolves once ranged across much of the United States but were hunted to near-extinction in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In 1973, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the gray wolf under the Endangered Species Act, in part, because its geographic range once included the Great Lakes region and 29 eastern states. Since then, gray wolves have rebounded due to protections, reintroduction, and natural repopulation, making wolf recovery in the West one of the most successful efforts under the ESA. Gray wolves also still live in the Great lakes area but not in the 29 eastern states. The red wolf also was protected under the ESA as a distinct species in 1973, but the eastern wolf, which was only recently recognized as a distinct species, is not protected.

The Fish and Wildlife Service will decide this fall whether to remove the gray wolf from protection, drawing renewed attention to the conflict between conservationists, ranchers, hunters and others who see the iconic predator either as a threat or as part of a healthy ecosystem. The agency says the gray wolf should be delisted because the eastern wolf - not the gray wolf - lived in the Great Lakes region and eastern states. Essentially, the presence of the eastern wolf, rather than the gray wolf, in the eastern United States would cause the gray wolf's original listing to be annulled. With the exception of the Mexican wolf, the gray wolf would lose protection from its entire North American range under the proposed rule change.

In their new study, lead author Bridgett vonHoldt, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton, and her colleagues analyzed the complete genomes of 12 pure gray wolves (from areas where there are no coyotes), three pure coyotes (from areas where there are no gray wolves), six eastern wolves (which the researchers call Great Lakes wolves) and three red wolves.

Results showed that eastern and red wolves are not evolutionary distinct species but the result of a relatively recent interbreeding: Eastern wolves are about 75 percent gray wolf and 25 percent coyote, while red wolves are about 25 percent gray wolf and 75 percent coyote.

"We found no evidence for an eastern or red wolf that has a separate evolutionary legacy," vonHoldt says. "These results suggest that arguments for delisting the gray wolf are not valid."

The researchers also conclude that the ESA should protect hybrid species because interbreeding in the wild, thought to be uncommon when the ESA was passed in 1973, has been shown to be common and may not be harmful.

"Our findings demonstrate how a strict designation of a species under the ESA that does not consider genetic admixture can threaten the protection of endangered species," vonHoldt says. "We argue for a more balanced approach that focuses on the ecological context of genetic admixture and allows for evolutionary processes to potentially restore historical patterns of genetic variation."

###

The study, "Whole-genome sequence analysis shows that two endemic species of North American wolf are admixtures of the coyote and gray wolf," was published July 27 by Science Advances. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.


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Should the gray wolf keep its endangered species protection?

New genomic research by UCLA biologists provides a scientific answer  

Stuart Wolpert | July 27, 2016

Dan Stahler

Gray wolves are currently protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (and are not always gray).

Research by UCLA biologists published today presents strong evidence that the scientific reason advanced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act is incorrect.

A key justification for protection of the gray wolf under the act was that its geographic range included the Great Lakes region and 29 Eastern states, as well as much of North America. The Fish and Wildlife Service published a document in 2014 which asserted that a newly recognized species called the eastern wolf occupied the Great Lakes region and eastern states, not the gray wolf.

A. Cuadra/Science

 Therefore, the original listing under the act was invalid, and the service recommended that the species (except for the Mexican gray wolf, which is the most endangered gray wolf in North America) should be removed from protection under the act.

A decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act may be made as early as this fall.

In the new study published in the journal Science Advances, biologists analyzed the complete genomes of North American wolves — including the gray wolf, eastern wolf and red wolf — and coyotes. The researchers found that both the red wolf and eastern wolf are not distinct species, but instead are mixes of gray wolf and coyote.

Reed Hutchinson/UCLA

Bridgett vonHoldt and Robert Wayne in 2009. 

“The recently defined eastern wolf is just a gray wolf and coyote mix, with about 75 percent of its genome assigned to the gray wolf,” said senior author Robert Wayne, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. “We found no evidence for an eastern wolf that has a separate evolutionary legacy. The gray wolf should keep its endangered species status and be preserved because the reason for removing it is incorrect. The gray wolf did live in the Great Lakes area and in the 29 eastern states.”

Once common throughout North America and among the world’s most widespread mammals, the gray wolf is now extinct in much of the United States, Mexico and Western Europe, and lives mostly in wilderness and remote areas. Gray wolves still live in the Great lakes area, but not in the eastern states.

Apparently, the two species first mixed hundreds of years ago in the American South, resulting in a population that has become more coyote-like as gray wolves were slaughtered, Wayne said. The same process occurred more recently in the Great Lakes area, as wolves became rare and coyotes entered the region in the 1920s.

The researchers analyzed the genomes of 12 pure gray wolves (from areas where there are no coyotes), three coyotes (from areas where there are no gray wolves), six eastern wolves (which the researchers call Great Lakes wolves) and three red wolves.

There has been a substantial controversy over whether red wolves and eastern wolves are genetically distinct species. In their study, the researchers did not find a unique ancestry in either that could not be explained by inter-breeding between gray wolves and coyotes.

“If you did this same experiment with humans — human genomes from Eurasia — you would find that one to four percent of the human genome has what looks like strange genomic elements from another species: Neanderthals,” Wayne said. “In red wolves and eastern wolves, we thought it might be at least 10 to 20 percent of the genome that could not be explained by ancestry from gray wolves and coyotes. However, we found just three to four percent, on average — similar to that found in individuals from the same species when compared to our small reference set.”

Dave Mech

Red wolf

Pure eastern wolves were thought to reside in Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park. The researchers studied two samples from Algonquin Provincial Park and found they were about 50 percent gray wolf, 50 percent coyote.

Biologists mistakenly classified the offspring of gray wolves and coyotes as red wolves or eastern wolves, but the new genomic data suggest they are hybrids. “These gray wolf-coyote hybrids look distinct and were mistaken as a distinct species,” Wayne said.

Eventually, after the extinction of gray wolves in the American south, the red wolves could mate only with one another and coyotes, and became increasingly coyote-like.

Red wolves turn out to be about 25 percent gray wolf and 75 percent coyote, while the eastern wolf’s ancestry is approximately 75 percent gray wolf and 25 percent coyote, Wayne said. (Wayne’s research team published findings in the journal Nature in 1991 suggesting red wolves were a mixture of gray wolves and coyotes.)

Although the red wolf, listed as an endangered species in 1973, is not a distinct species, Wayne believes it is worth conserving; it is the only repository of the gray wolf genes that existed in the American South, he said.

The researchers analyzed SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) — tiny variations in a genetic sequence, and used sophisticated statistical approaches. In the more than two dozen genomes, they found 5.4 million differences in SNPs, a very large number.

Carla Schaffer/AAAS

Genomic sequencing reveals that red wolves and eastern wolves are hybrids of gray wolves.

Wayne said the Endangered Species Act has been extremely effective. He adds, however, that when it was formulated in the 1970s, biologists thought species tended not to inter-breed with other species, and that if there were hybrids, they were not as fit. The scientific view has changed substantially since then. Inter-breeding in the wild is common and may even be beneficial, he said. The researchers believe the Endangered Species Act should be applied with more flexibility to allow protection of hybrids in some cases (it currently does not), and scientists have made several suggestions about how this might be done without a change in the law, Wayne said.

Co-authors of the study include lead author Bridgett vonHoldt, an assistant professor at Princeton University and former UCLA graduate student and postdoctoral scholar who worked in Wayne’s laboratory; Beth Shapiro, UC Santa Cruz associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology; Jacqueline Robinson, a UCLA graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology in Wayne’s laboratory; and Zhenxin Fan, an assistant professor at China’s Sichuan University, who was a visiting graduate student in Wayne’s laboratory.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Turner Endangered Species Fund, the Wilburforce Foundation, and the Morris Animal Foundation.


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Protect Wolves or Hunt Them? Western States Are in the Crosshairs

• July 22, 2016
• By Elaine S. Povich

© The Pew Charitable Trusts

 

Washington state sheep rancher Dave Dashiell next to a lamb he delivered minutes earlier. Western states like Washington are walking a line between preserving wolves as an endangered species and helping ranchers control them.

HUNTERS, Wash. — Sheep rancher Dave Dashiell got to his feet and wiped the blood from his hands. A newborn lamb he had just delivered from a struggling ewe took one breath, then another. He laid the lamb down gently in front of its mother. “I hope he lives,” Dashiell said.

In extreme northeastern Washington state, the hope is not only that the lamb will avoid sickness and injury so its mother will raise it, but that an increasing number of gray wolves won’t make it their prey.

As gray wolves multiply and come off endangered species lists in Western states, a new problem has emerged: Packs of wolves are harassing ranchers, their sheep and cattle. And states are trying to walk the line between the ranchers, who view the animals as an economic and physical menace, and environmentalists, who see their reintroduction as a success story.

Nowhere is that line more starkly drawn than here in Washington, where the state has devoted thousands of man hours to the issue and has $3.3 million in its budget to help manage it.

“How do you cross that divide? It is a tough one,” said Donny Martorello, wolf policy chief in the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. “It really is about having a large carnivore back on the landscape that has been absent for decades. If you are in a rural community, there is that uncertainty that it will threaten your way of life and how you support your family.

“The larger society has made the call that they value wildlife,” he said, “and our job is to steer [wolves] toward recovery. Wolves are doing quite well. Is there an option not to have wolves in Washington? That is not in our foreseeable future.”

Back From the Brink

In most of the United States, gray wolves are listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as an endangered species and protected from hunting or trapping. But in certain areas and some states — Montana, Idaho, the eastern third of Washington and Oregon, and north-central Utah — the wolves have been “de-listed,” meaning they no longer have blanket protection.

In the early 1900s, gray wolves were nearly extinct, except in Alaska. But protection programs have restored their population to an estimated 1,904 in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington as of the end of last year, according to the federal agency.

In Montana and Idaho, wolves may be hunted, within tight restrictions and seasons. In the other states, there is no legal hunting of wolves. But in the parts of Oregon, Utah and Washington where wolves have been de-listed, states are empowered to eliminate wolves that have been proven to be a menace to livestock, dogs or humans, and to provide compensation for lost livestock.

(Although the federal agency has recommended that the protection of wolves be lifted in Wyoming and the western Great Lakes region, court cases have stalled the change in regulation.)

Oregon began planning for wolf management in the eastern part of the state in 2005, long before wolves became a menace, according to Michelle Dennehy, spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Earlier this year, the department killed some wolves in what’s been named the Imnaha pack because they were involved in “chronic livestock depredation,” she said.

The regulations for compensating ranchers for livestock lost to wolves vary among the states and can be quite detailed. And dispute stems from the various details. For example, what constitutes “proof” of a lethal wolf attack causes much of the conflict between conservationists and ranchers. Washington has a compensation program for ranchers whose livestock is killed by wolves, but first, the rancher has to prove it. And the amount of compensation varies with market prices.

Justin Hedrick, 29, a fifth-generation rancher and co-owner of the Diamond M Ranch in Laurier, Washington, just shy of the Canadian border, maintains there are enough wolf packs in the northeastern part of the state to justify lifting protections on them statewide. But that’s not how it works.

Washington is divided roughly into thirds, and each part of the state must have a requisite number of packs for the wolves to come off the protected list. The northeastern third more than qualifies, but the other two do not, according to the state’s Fish and Wildlife Department.

Once a cow or sheep is found dead in the northeastern third, state officials come out to do an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

Sometimes it’s easy. Bite marks and wolf tracks nearby are pretty good indicators. But in other instances, the wounds are nonspecific and the tracks are nonexistent, leaving officials to use blood tests and other forensic exams to try to determine a cause of death.

Then there are the nonlethal implications for the cattle and sheep. Len McIrvin, 73, Hedrick’s grandfather and co-owner of the Diamond M, who has been in the ranching business his entire life, said the cows have been more skittish and haven’t calved as often since the wolves have been around. McIrvin said that when wolves harass cattle, 20 percent of the cows don’t calve in the spring, compared with a normal 2 to 3 percent.

Dashiell, 59, said the same for his sheep. Dashiell said he lost 300 sheep in 2014 to the nearby Huckleberry wolf pack, out of a flock of 1,800. The packs are named by the Wildlife Department to help keep track of them. State Fish and Wildlife examiners confirmed two dozen kills and implemented a plan to kill four wolves in the area with helicopters and rifles. But the wily wolves successfully hid in the trees, and only one wolf was killed.

Dashiell said because of the risks posed to his flock by the wolves, he decided to sell off 600 head last fall. At about $200 a head at market, he said his potential gross sales went from $100,000 a year to $40,000 — “if we’re lucky.” The state compensated Dashiell for his lost sheep, $216 a head, but the market price at the time was more like $250 to $300 a head, he said.

The wolf program is costly for the state, too. In the 2015-7 budget, Washington state gave wolf management planning a special one-time appropriation of $2.2 million — that goes to research, consulting and planning.

The program itself is funded by $3.1 million in state funds, along with a $600,000 one-time grant from the federal government. The state money comes from a $10 surcharge on personalized license plates, wildlife license sales, a tax on firearms and ammunition, and general revenue. In fiscal 2017, the state set aside $300,000 to compensate for livestock losses caused by wolves.

Cooperation between the states and the federal government is key to managing wolves, according to a June report by the Western Governors’ Association. After extensive consultation, workshops and seminars, the governors called for more attention to “how state resources — including data, science, analyses and manpower — can be better leveraged for the benefit of species.”

Recovery Mode

Shawn Cantrell, a northwest regional director for the Defenders of Wildlife, a national environmental group, said that although he sympathizes with ranchers, wolves are “still very much in the recovery mode” in Washington and still need protection. “It’s encouraging in the path it’s going, but it is still fragile,” he said.

He maintains that while the loss of livestock is a “big deal, an economic as well as a personal loss” to ranchers, wolves account for a relatively small percentage of livestock loss compared with that caused by other predators, such as coyotes, and by natural causes.

Wolves help the overall ecosystem, Cantrell said, because they control coyotes and thin the deer and elk populations. They also provide other environmental benefits, he said. For example, the return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park helps balance the riparian areas, the stream-side habitats.

Without wolves, deer and elk would congregate along the rivers and eat all the young trees before they could grow. With wolves around, deer and elk don’t stay in one place, allowing the cottonwoods and aspens to grow and further enhance the ecosystem.

Various bills in the 2015-6 session of the Washington Legislature would have changed wolf policy. Some would have removed protections entirely and others would have enhanced protections, but none succeeded. To combat polarization, the state in 2013 established the Wolf Advisory Group, with representatives from both environmental and ranching interests, along with an outside facilitator, to try to bridge the gap and make recommendations.

Some ranchers, like Dashiell, have quit the group in frustration, but others are still participating. State Rep. Shelly Short, who chairs the Republican caucus in the House and represents many ranchers in the eastern part of the state, said the wolf group came to an “aha moment” at a meeting in May. There was “recognition on the part of ranchers that cows would be lost and an acknowledgement on the part of the preservation community that wolves would probably be lost,” she said.

Jack Field, a rancher who represents the Washington Cattlemen’s Association on the advisory board, said ranchers have to be involved in the conversation because the environmentalists hold sway with the Legislature and Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee. “You’re either at the table or on the menu,” he said.
Working with the advisory panel, the state has devised preventive measures such as lights, sirens, fencing, range riders and dogs to try to protect livestock. The costs are shared with ranchers. But ranchers say these methods are nearly useless.

State Rep. Joel Kretz, another Republican who also represents the area, pooh-poohs the preventive measures, too. He said residents in the more populous western part of the state, which includes Seattle, don’t get it.

“I understand the concept of sitting in Seattle and thinking that it’s good hearing wolves howl in the distance. But they don’t understand what we go through,” he said. “I ran a bill to relocate them [the wolves] to the West. I said, ‘Here’s your chance to experience the love of wolves in your community.’ ” It didn’t get anywhere.

State Rep. Kristine Lytton, a Democrat who represents a northwestern part of the state, said learning to manage wolves to benefit both ranchers and conservationists would require cultural change. “How do we set up the environment where wolves and people and animals can be in their natural environments and still stay alive.”

Idaho Experience

In Idaho, where wolves have been hunted since 2009, Mike Keckler, spokesman for the Idaho Fish and Game Department, argued that the state’s years of experience in managing wolf populations have succeeded in reducing the conflict between livestock owners and environmentalists.

But every year during wolf hunting season, wildlife protection groups decry the practice. For example: A “predator derby” in Idaho in 2014, which awarded prizes for killing animals including wolves, was decried as a “gratuitous wildlife massacre” by the environmental group Project Coyote.


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Pearce move aims to cut wolf recovery

Written by Benjamin Fisher on July 23, 2016

 

Following the release of an investigation of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Program by the Department of Interior’s inspector general — a report which Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce called “damning” — Pearce submitted an amendment, or rider, to the House Interior and Environment appropriation bill that would strip federal funding from the program.

The bill is to fund the many agencies housed under the Department of the Interior umbrella, ma
 ny of which impact life here in New Mexico — the National Park Service, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, and the Bureau of Land Management among them. And, of course, Fish and Wildlife.

To the bill, which includes billions of dollars appropriated to Fish and Wildlife, Pearce added the following amendment:

“None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to treat the Mexican wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) as an endangered species or threatened species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 or to implement a recovery plan for such species that applies in any area outside the historic range of such species.”

The bill successfully passed the House of Representatives. Pearce — who does not sit on the House Appropriations Committee — made one of 101 amendments to the original bill.

According to a press release from Pearce’s office, the amendment “effectively delists the Mexican wolf from the Endangered Species Act and will allow the states to manage the wolf recovery independently.”

Based partly on the outcome of the report by the Inspector General’s Office, which found evidence of mismanagement in the program — particularly of “nuisance wolves” — Pearce believes the state should manage any reintroduction, rather than the federal agency.

Fish and Wildlife “has consistently proven its inability to manage the Mexican wolf program in New Mexico,” Pearce was quoted as saying in the release. “This is clear in the recent Inspector General Report substantiating claims from Catron County that those at the top levels of the program at [Fish and Wildlife] tolerated a culture of lies, falsification, mismanagement, and manipulation of scientific data, ultimately at the cost of public trust and species recovery. I am pleased that the House passed this amendment, it is time to give this program back to the states.”

Pearce’s press secretary, Megan Wells, told the Daily Press that the state control of the project Pearce envisions will be however the state “sees fit,” and does not specify assignment to any existing agency, like New Mexico Game and Fish, which is closely tied — but often at odds — with federal Fish and Wildlife on the reintroduction.

Game and Fish is involved in a lawsuit with Fish and Wildlife over the reintroduction, following Fish and Wildlife’s continued release of Mexican gray wolves despite a Game and Fish Commission’s refusal to permit further releases.

Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity — whose organization also recently sued Fish and Wildlife to secure a deadline for a revised recovery plan — voiced concerns over the nature of the rider as well as confusion over some of its language.

“This is a radical change in policy, but it is not going through all the debate a radical change in policy usually goes through before it is passed,” Robinson said.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Tom Udall has similar feelings on the use of such riders.

“He believes that annual appropriations bills are not the right way to make significant environmental policy decisions — which should be based on science and involve significant public input,” Udall’s communications director, Jennifer Talhelm, said in a statement. “Senator Udall ‎opposes the riders, which would also be opposed by the president. He fought to strike all riders when the Senate committee considered the Interior appropriations bill, including riders to gut the Endangered Species Act.”

Udall is the leading Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies.

Robinson is concerned that Pearce’s proposal will get set aside as insignificant by the majority of Americans and passed, potentially even leading to the extinction of the Mexican gray wolf in the United States.

Grant County Farm Bureau President Stewart Rooks supported Pearce’s vision of a state-run recovery plan, if any. The Farm Bureau and members of the agricultural community in general have been largely against the wolf’s recovery.

“As far as Farm Bureau stands, we’re very concerned. Farm Bureau has not been in favor of wolf reintroduction,” Rooks said. “But now we’ve found out that the people in charge of the wolf here were falsifying reports on dangerous wolves and livestock predations. It is real unfortunate that they weren’t honest with the taxpayers.”

He said perhaps the state’s handling of the wolf would align more to the agricultural community’s way of thinking.

“I would be in favor of shifting the wolf program to the state,” Rooks continued. “If we have New Mexico people running things, they’ll be more tuned in with local people, the ranchers and farmers.”

The Mexican gray wolf rider wasn’t Pearce’s only move that would affect endangered species programs. Another seeks to “protect ranchers’ water rights” by also keeping funds from being used to treat the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse as an endangered species. The goal there is to stop the U.S. Forest Service from building fences and otherwise restricting access to what Pearce called “privately held water rights,” moves which he said threaten ranchers’ livelihoods.

Overall, Pearce applauded the bill, especially with his amendments.

The appropriations bill also includes measures to block the Waters of the United States rule put forth by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency, which defined the scope of water protected by the Clean Water Act. Pearce said this was the Obama administration’s attempt to “take control of ditches and farm ponds.”

Rooks agreed with that point as well. “If someone has a piece of property where one of these drainages is, if you were going to do anything to disturb it, you can be fined,” he said. “This is a detriment to not only agriculture producers but any private property owner.”

The bill also contains language that, if adopted, would block the Bureau of Land Management from limiting hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) and venting or flaring of natural gas.

According to the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations website, the Senate’s Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies has been working on their own version of the 2017 bill but it has not gone to the Senate floor.

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Banff wolves worry officials after train deaths and persistent bad behaviour

CBC News 5 days ago

  An example of what not to do. 

The wolves in Banff National Park are taking a licking.

Four of the six pups born in April to the Bow Valley wolf pack have been killed by trains, and now officials are intentionally causing pain to some of the grown wolves in an attempt to reverse bad behaviour that could end up getting the wolves killed.

Officials are particularly concerned about one member of the pack that wandered through the Johnson Canyon campground and managed to find some human food scraps.

This particular yearling has continued to exhibit "inappropriate behaviour," in its quest to find human food, said Steve Michel, Parks Canada human-wildlife conflict specialist.

'We haze them very aggressively'

Normally, Parks Canada discourages this kind of dangerous behaviour through the use of radio collars.

But only three of the four grown members of the pack currently wear them.

These collars allows officials to track the wolves' movement and use "aversive conditioning" when necessary to discourage the wolves from entering specific regions.

"When they come into developed areas, whether it's campgrounds, or picnic grounds, or town sites, we haze them very aggressively away from those locations with a variety of deterrents, including impact deterrents that are designed to cause them pain," said Michel.

The alternative, said Michel, would be to kill the wolves that continue to exhibit this kind of behaviour.

"Once an animal becomes food conditioned, it often can be irreversible," he said.

"Ultimately, that animal may have to be destroyed and removed from the ecosystem. That's something that nobody wants to see in a place like Banff National Park."

Officials urge proper trash disposal

Michel said he remains optimistic that officials will be able to reverse the bad behaviour of all four wolves, including the "particularly problematic" yearling.

A wolf warning is currently in effect for all campgrounds and picnic areas in Banff National Park.
Michel urges residents and visitors to store food properly and dispose of garbage in the designated receptacles.

Failure to do so can result in a maximum fine of $25,000 under the Canada National Parks Act.

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Alberta Wolf Is In Danger Of Becoming Food Conditioned

The Huffington Post Alberta  |  By Sarah Rieger

Posted: 07/21/2016 

 

Messy campers could lead to another loss for Alberta's Bow Valley Wolf Pack, Parks Canada staff warn.
On Tuesday, a yearling grey wolf entered a campground in Johnston Canyon, attracted by the smell of garbage that wasn't properly disposed of.
Steve Michel, a human-wildlife contact specialist, says staff are concerned the wolf might become food conditioned.
“The last couple days, it has been exhibiting problematic behaviour,” he said in an interview with the Rocky Mountain Outlook.

Food-conditioned wolf killed

In June, the young wolf's mother was killed after she became food conditioned and was approaching people at a campground.
Staff say it's vital that Banff National Park visitors respect the wildlife and properly dispose of or store their food.
“Unfortunately, it just takes one visitor to not follow those recommendations, and food or garbage can be left out and a bear or wolf can find it and then we have a real problem on our hands,” Michel told The Crag And Canyon.
The camper has been charged with not properly disposing of their garbage, which could lead to a maximum fine of $25,000, according to the Calgary Herald.

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Colorado wolf advocates, wildlife managers again feud over reintroduction

 
Getty Images / Hemera |

According to the state’s wildlife management agency, an increase in sightings of northern gray wolves from Wyoming is likely to create an eventual establishment of the species in Colorado. Wolf advocacy groups are not so convinced, and question why an official reintroduction is not being endorsed, especially with the state already anticipating a defined population down the line.

  Getty Images / iStockphoto |

The debate over gray wolf reintroduction in Colorado remains a testy topic as conservation groups and the state's wildlife management agency argue over its merits and unknowns.

The debate over the wolf’s place in Colorado remains a heated one.

A week ago, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) — the agency tasked with managing the state’s fishing, hunting, camping and boating and operating 42 state parks and more than 900,000 acres of wildlands — released a statement that climbing sightings of gray wolves over the last several years will lead to a “likely eventual establishment of their population in Colorado.” Because of this assumption, CPW was reminding the public that under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, those who kill a wolf could face up to a year in prison and upwards of $100,000 fines for each offense, per the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Many saw the announcement as harmless enough, with wolf advocates even commending CPW’s progressive effort to help protect the threatened population of this oft-romanticized species from the early days of the American West. But it’s the accompanying inference that wolf numbers will continue to organically grow in Colorado without a formal reintroduction that has set off yet another battle.

“As usual, wildlife management is complicated,” said Dean Riggs, CPW’s Northwest deputy regional manager. “The emotional issues associated with something like this are the things that are hard to deal with. Most people want to make wildlife management simple and/or very scientific, and it’s not.”

On one side of this ongoing dispute are those who fervently oppose the return of the gray wolf to the region, particularly landowners in the agricultural industry and sportsmen who do not welcome competition with another predator in securing elk or deer each hunting season. On the other are those who champion the wolf and its right to be in its prior location and desire a return to a historically more realistic and native ecosystem.

“There’s not a lot of history or knowledge that wolves attack humans, but there will be people, just like there are with bears and (mountain) lions, who are very concerned about a large predator out in the backcountry.”Mike Porraspublic information officer,CPW Northwest

Mike Phillips, executive director of the Turner Endangered Species Fund, is of the latter mindset and is outspoken that, despite the arguments of the countermovement, wolves pose no noteworthy hazard to the livestock industry. That the killing of farm animals is the rare exception to the rule, and techniques already exist to help offset potential issues on private land to responsibly recolonize the state.

“There is no more symbolic voice for the wildlands of Colorado than the howl of the wolf,” said Phillips, who is also a state representative in Montana. “They were an important member of Colorado’s natural history, they could be an important member of the future and they’re important to restoring the natural balance to Colorado. The wolf’s presence would indicate a more complete, a more balanced landscape than not.”

And, he said, because the western half of Colorado is so rich with ungulates — elk and deer — hunters would not even notice an impact to their takes. The matter of human safety is also a possible worry from the re-emergence of this carnivorous animal near the top of many food chains, but that, too, is one that is unfounded. CPW mostly agrees.

“There’s not a lot of history or knowledge that wolves attack humans,” said Mike Porras, CPW’s Northwest public information officer, “but there will be people, just like there are with bears and (mountain) lions, who are very concerned about a large predator out in the backcountry. And, of course, there remains that possibility that there could be a conflict.”

Hairy Scenario

The specific type of gray wolf seen in the state, that CPW asserts is showing up more and more, is the northern version that was re-established in 1995 at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and also extends into Montana and Idaho. While wolf backers argue there is no proof of an increase in Colorado wolf sightings, they also remain aggressive in pushing for reintroduction of both that subspecies, as well as that of the Mexican breed that was put back into the wild in Arizona in 1998.

Since then, a handful of conservation groups sued U.S. Fish and Wildlife in 2014 and won, forcing the federal wildlife protection agency to develop a recovery plan for the Mexican subspecies by the end of 2017. The governors of Utah, New Mexico and Colorado quickly mobilized to officially oppose launch of these wolves in their respective states, with CPW backing the decision by insisting that the region is not the original range of the southern-based wolf, to which wolf crusaders like Phillips spiritedly contest.

Still, muddling the situation further is the fact that CPW is against any systematic reintroduction of the northern subspecies, too, but for different reasons. Among them, because the agency is currently on the hook for any damages caused to private property by either predators or prey, it does not wish to lose vital and limited resources to additional and unknown wildlife expenses. But, if they start showing up in waves, it will be forced to work on management.

“A lot of different factors go into management decisions,” said Porras, “but certainly, losses from predators, losses from game damage are all a big part of that, as well. (Wolves) certainly don’t recognize state boundaries; they just go to where they can find habitat or where they can find food. If they come into the state, then they’re coming in on their own, and we just have to accept that fact.”

What constitutes an established population of wolves is yet another disagreement among these groups of stakeholders — be it mating pairs or multiple and prospering packs in a single area long term. 

Regardless, members of the pro-wolf viewpoint dispute that anything more than perhaps a handful of strays or occasional border crossing will ever materialize without an implemented reintroduction plan. And producing one allows for the most cost-effective, liberally-managed and successful approach to receiving what the state agency is already under the impression is ultimately unavoidable, but, as of now, CPW isn’t budging.

“The bottom line is that Colorado Parks and Wildlife remains opposed to a (wolf) reintroduction,” said Porras. “Certainly people are fascinated by them. They’re these beautiful creatures, and they’re great to see. But opinions of these species can run the gamut in terms of whether they’re seen as beneficial or harmful. We have to look at both sides and have to walk that fine line. It’s just a much more complicated issue right now to reintroduce them.”

CPW requests that anyone who believes they have spotted a wolf to report it by filling out an online form at: cpw.state.co.us/learn/Pages/Wolf-Sighting-Form.aspx. Photographic evidence is valuable if possible, but officials urge members of the public to never approach wildlife and to shoot images only if it is safe.

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Two packs gone, new wolves move in

July 25, 2016

A wolf near Silver Lake, Oregon, is spotted by a remote camera on Dec. 8, 2015. Photo: Oregon Fish and Wildlife

SALEM, Ore. – There’s a new area of known wolf activity (AKWA) in Umatilla County, and it’s an area that was previously home to the Umatilla River Pack.
“We actually found these wolves as we do many others, by remote trail camera footage,” Michelle Dennehy of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said. “We were seeing two wolves, and then we got a photo of two pups.”
Dennehy says they are called the North Mount Emily wolves. They will qualify as a pack if the two pups survive through the end of the year. The Umatilla River Pack no longer exists, as its members dispersed to other packs. Dennehy says biologists speculate that the pack was led by an alpha male wolf who was very old, and could have died.
There’s also a new group of four wolves in Wallowa County, and research into those wolves have indicated to ODFW that the Imnaha Pack has been wiped out. ODFW took lethal action against the pack following several acts of depredation against livestock.
“We believe that the entire pack was removed,” Dennehy said. “We had a chronic depredation situation. We weren’t sure if maybe there were some left, but we now believe the entire pack was removed.”
What led ODFW to that conclusion is that there are at least four wolves living on the traditional winter home range of the Imnaha Pack. One of those wolves, a 10-month-old male, was collared and tested. That wolf showed no lineage to the Imnaha Pack.
Dennehy said biologists continue to study the two new groups of wolves.


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Young wolf gets into garbage at Johnston Canyon campground

Colette Derworiz, Calgary Herald

Published on: July 21, 2016

Two grey wolves from the Bow Valley wolf pack at Tunnel Mountain Trailer Court in the morning on June 2, 2016. Simon Ham/Parks Canada / Postmedia

A young wolf from the troubled Bow Valley pack has gotten into some garbage at a campground in Banff National Park, leading to charges against a camper and prompting officials to remind others to keep their sites clean.

Late Tuesday night, wildlife officials were called to the Johnston Canyon campground, located along the Bow Valley parkway.

“There was campground staff that was still working at the time that first observed the animal,” said Steve Michel, human/wildlife conflict specialist with Banff National Park. “They observed it going campsite to campsite, sniffing around.

“While staff were en route, it located some garbage.”

Michel said it doesn’t appear the wolf got a significant food reward, but it was able to tear open the garbage bag left underneath a picnic table.

Officials were able to chase the animal away from the campground — although they are concerned it’s showing the same signs of trying to get human food and garbage that led to the death of its mother.

“We suspected earlier on that one of the grey yearlings was food conditioned and exhibiting some poor behaviour,” said Michel, noting it’s not completely unexpected.

Earlier that day, the same wolf travelled through the Tunnel Mountain campground and staff were able to chase it away with a chalk balls.

Michel said they will continue to haze the animal away from populated areas such as campgrounds and the townsites.

The camper has been charged with not having their garbage properly secured, which includes a mandatory court appearance and a maximum fine of $25,000.

Officials with Banff National Park had embarked on a don’t-feed-the-wildlife campaign after the mother wolf was put down in June when she became aggressive because she had gotten into human food.

“Food and garbage always jeopardizes wildlife,” said Michel, noting people need to read the wolf warning and understand that feeding wildlife can be lethal. “It goes beyond the wolves with bears and coyotes and all of the animals that could potentially pass by people’s campsites.

“That really jeopardizes their survival,” he said.

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Highland Wildlife Park welcome six fluffy wolf cubs to the pack

07.27.2016

Six adorable wolf pups have been welcomed to the pack at Cairngorms National Park in the north of Scotland.

The six pups were born on June 3 to mother Ruby and father Jax and joined the pack at Wolf Wood in the Highland wildlife park.

At seven weeks old, the shy cubs can now be seen playing and tumbling in their 4,500 square metre enclosure.

The pups do not stray too far from their mother's sight as they gradually gain the confidence to venture out further in the enclosure.

They are the first set of wolves to be born at the park since 2013 but are yet to be named by keepers as the boisterous pups have yet to be named.

Douglas Richardson, head of living collections at RZSS Highland Wildlife Park, said that wolves have been an "iconic" species at the park since it opened in 1972.

He said: "We are really pleased about the birth of the six wolf pups.

"The last pups to be born at the Park arrived in 2013 and Ruby, this year's mum, was born in the Park in 2012.

"Her siblings went on to join other collections as part of a coordinated approach to European wolf management in the UK, whilst Ruby stayed behind to start her own pack.

"This is the first time Ruby has had pups and she is proving to be an excellent mother.

"The pups are doing very well and are slowly starting to wander from the den, although they are still quite shy and always remain close to their mother's side.

"The wolf has been an iconic species at Highland Wildlife Park since its opening in 1972 and it is wonderful to see a new pack developing.

"As they would disperse from their natal pack in the wild, these pups will eventually go out to other collections to augment existing packs or help create new ones.

"But whether at RZSS Highland Wildlife Park or in any other zoological collection, they will also have a role in helping to dispel many of the myths that surround wolves; little red riding hood has a lot to answer for."

The wolves at Highland Wildlife Park are European wolves and are found throughout Scandinavia, and pockets of Southern and Eastern Europe and Western Russia.

The European wolf is one of the subspecies of grey wolf, a species that was once found across all of Europe, most of Asia and all of North America.

Wolves were once the world's most widely distributed mammal, found throughout the northern hemisphere but nowadays are much more restricted and have diminished as a result of hunting and trapping for fur, as well as habitat loss and fragmentation.

Wolves once roamed freely in Scotland but were hunted to extinction by the 1740s.

The recovery of European wolf populations began after the 1950s when they became less heavily persecuted, and by the 1980s small wolf populations began to grow and reoccupy parts of their historic range.

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Yellowstone Science looks back at 20 years of wolves

Posted: July 20, 2016

A wolf pack in Yellowstone National Park works together to capture a bison. Utah State University’s Department of Wildland Resources and Ecology Center researchers and Yellowstone National Park scientists reported findings from a study on wolf packs and hunting on the PLOS ONE website, the peer-reviewed Public Library of Science online publication. Daniel Stahler / Courtesy of National Park Service

By LUKE RAMSETH

Yellowstone National Park released its latest Yellowstone Science publication last week, which takes an in-depth look at the 20-plus years since wolves were reintroduced.

The issue includes research findings and articles on wolf genetics, predation habits, infectious diseases that have struck wolf packs over the years, and even a section on “why wolves howl.”

“The restoration of wolves to the Yellowstone area was a transformational event because it completed the restoration of native, large carnivores in the ecosystem, which is a remarkable, though controversial, achievement,” said P.J. White, the park’s wildlife and aquatic resources branch chief.

Some 41 wolves from Canada and northwest Montana were brought into the park between 1995 and 1997. They have since been the focus of much controversy between wildlife advocates and hunters and ranchers — and gone through many delisting, and relisting, efforts over the years under the Endangered Species Act.

“It’s complicated,” wrote Yellowstone wildlife biologist Doug Smith in an introduction to the issue. “Everything with wolves is that way. Most people rate wolves among the most controversial wildlife to live with; a colleague from India rates them as more controversial than tigers — a species that occasionally kills people.”

Here are a few takeaways from the issue:

1. Wolf population growth has leveled off. Since reintroduction, scientists put the wolf population growth into two phases. In phase one, their numbers grew rapidly each year, reaching more than 170 in the park in the mid-2000s. After 2008, the second “saturation” phase began, where numbers have mostly hovered around 100 in the park.
Disease, limited habitat space, and an equilibrium between wolf numbers and those of their prey may have contributed to population size leveling off, scientists wrote.

2. Scientists know a lot about wolf genetics. Researchers write that “few non-human species have been at the frontiers of genetic research as have wolves and their relatives.” Genetic research was crucial when the wolves were reintroduced: Scientists carefully selected certain wolves from different packs in different parts of Canada to make up the new Yellowstone population.
Today, scientists collect genetic material each time a wolf is captured to be radio-collared, extracting DNA from the blood, tissue or scat. They are using the resulting information to study everything from genetic lineages of Yellowstone wolves, to wolf coat color and aggressive wolf behaviors.

3. Wolves are only so-so hunters. Previous research has shown that wolves often struggle to catch the ungulate they are teaming up on — whether it’s a moose, bison or deer — a fact that runs contrary to the popular view that wolves are some of the most savvy, and successful, hunters around.
It turns out wolves usually are only able to kill young, old and debilitated animals, scientists said, “a small fraction of the total prey population.” Many of their skeletal features, including their front teeth, their skulls and their long snouts aren’t that great for killing, researchers wrote.

To read the full Yellowstone Science issue, go to tinyurl.com/WolfYNP.

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Fish, Wildlife Service disputes claims of mismanagement in wolf recovery program

Posted: Thursday, July 21, 2016 

By Rebecca Moss
The New Mexican

 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday that allegations of mismanagement of the Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Program contained in a recent federal report were effectively addressed prior to the investigation and all other claims in the report had “no validity.”
Dr. Benjamin Tuggle, Southwest regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, acknowledged that the program had management issues with senior leadership in the past, but he said the service was made aware of this by “multiple sources” and “then executed an appropriate and proper solution” by moving the manager to an administrative role, according to an agency statement.

“Other allegations in the report were thoroughly reviewed by OIG [Office of Inspector General] and regional leadership, but there was no validity to those claims,” he said.

The Interior Department released a report last week that addressed issues with how the Fish and Wildlife Service had dealt with residents in Western New Mexico’s Catron County, the area most affected by Mexican gray wolf releases in the Gila Wilderness.

Residents interviewed for the report, including livestock owners in the area, said the service had failed to effectively communicate with the community about the presence or threat posed by wolves in the area, failed to fully compensate ranchers for livestock losses as a result of predatory wolves and did not record or effectively respond to nuisance complaints filed about wolves. Residents also alleged that the service had deliberately disposed of slaughtered livestock without alerting the ranchers.

The service contradicted these claims Thursday, saying that it notifies ranchers about dead livestock, conducts investigations into the cause of death on request and alerts residents to wolf locations through biweekly flights over the management range. The service said ranchers have been compensated entirely for loses since 2011, with the exception of two who warranted lower payments according to the Mexican Wolf/Livestock Council, which directs compensation to producers for depredations. The service acknowledges that there were failures in fully compensating ranchers prior to 2011.

“The OIG report validates that we were responsive to shortcomings in the field program in 2013 and that we’re on the right track in improving our coordination with residents and livestock producers of Catron County,” Tuggle said.

U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-Hobbs, had called for a congressional investigation at the behest of Catron County residents. He called the report “damning.”

Of the service, Pearce said last week, “Their problems are much bigger than one employee and extend to the highest levels of the agency.” His spokeswoman Megan Wells reiterated Thursday that Pearce still believes the agency’s denials further harm New Mexicans.

The congressman added an amendment to a House appropriations bill last week that, if signed into law, would cut all funding from the Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Program, saying the service had “consistently proven its inability to manage” it.

The Obama administration and environmental advocates strongly objected to the amendment.

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., told The New Mexican this week that the anti-environmental language in the bill was part of a “pattern of very problematic anti-conservation riders,” over the last few years in the House. He said he would be working with U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., to ensure those amendments are removed from the final bill.

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Red wolf pup now has name

July 23, 2016

HAS NAME — The N.C. Zoo’s red wolf pup born May 3 is growing up fast and now has a name, ‘Solo.’ (N.C. Zoo photo)

By Kathi Keys

ASHEBORO — “Pup” is now officially “Red Solo Lobo.”
But, N.C. Zoo keepers will call the almost 3-month-old red wolf pup, born May 3, “Solo.”
He’s reported to be getting bigger, more than 12.6 pounds now, plus is more playful with his mother, Haley, and likes to chew on sticks.
“Red Solo Lobo” received the most donations in the naming contest, which concluded July 17, raising nearly $400 for red wolf conservation.
His official name — which means “red, single wolf” — brought in about half the total. Other choices were “Rheagar” in honor of his father, Rayder, and “Drogo,” which is the name of a strong character from the popular TV series “Game of Thrones.”
The “We can’t keep calling him pup!” naming activity was announced on Facebook and websites for the zoo and its support organization, the N.C. Zoo Society, which works with the zoo for the Red Wolf Breeding and Reintroduction Program.
Those voting were asked to make a minimum $5 tax-deductible donation to the zoo society either online or at the park.

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Should the gray wolf keep its endangered species protection?

New genomic research provides the scientific answer

Date:

July 27, 2016

Source:

University of California - Los Angeles

Summary:

A decision by the US Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the gray wolf from protection under the US Endangered Species Act may be made as early as this fall. Research presents strong evidence that the scientific reason advanced by the service for delisting the gray wolf is incorrect.

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Gray wolves are currently protected under the US Endangered Species Act (and are not always gray).

Credit: Dan Stahler

 

Research by UCLA biologists published today in the journal Science Advances presents strong evidence that the scientific reason advanced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act is incorrect.

A key justification for protection of the gray wolf under the act was that its geographic range included the Great Lakes region and 29 Eastern states, as well as much of North America. The Fish and Wildlife Service published a document in 2014 which asserted that a newly recognized species called the eastern wolf occupied the Great Lakes region and eastern states, not the gray wolf. Therefore, the original listing under the act was invalid, and the service recommended that the species (except for the Mexican gray wolf, which is the most endangered gray wolf in North America) should be removed from protection under the act.

A decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act may be made as early as this fall.

In the new study, biologists analyzed the complete genomes of North American wolves -- including the gray wolf, eastern wolf and red wolf -- and coyotes. The researchers found that both the red wolf and eastern wolf are not distinct species, but instead are mixes of gray wolf and coyote.

"The recently defined eastern wolf is just a gray wolf and coyote mix, with about 75 percent of its genome assigned to the gray wolf," said senior author Robert Wayne, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. "We found no evidence for an eastern wolf that has a separate evolutionary legacy. The gray wolf should keep its endangered species status and be preserved because the reason for removing it is incorrect. The gray wolf did live in the Great Lakes area and in the 29 eastern states."

Once common throughout North America and among the world's most widespread mammals, the gray wolf is now extinct in much of the United States, Mexico and Western Europe, and lives mostly in wilderness and remote areas. Gray wolves still lives in the Great lakes area, but not in the eastern states.

Apparently, the two species first mixed hundreds of years ago in the American South, resulting in a population that has become more coyote-like as gray wolves were slaughtered, Wayne said. The same process occurred more recently in the Great Lakes area, as wolves became rare and coyotes entered the region in the 1920s.

The researchers analyzed the genomes of 12 pure gray wolves (from areas where there are no coyotes), three coyotes (from areas where there are no gray wolves), six eastern wolves (which the researchers call Great Lakes wolves) and three red wolves.

There has been a substantial controversy over whether red wolves and eastern wolves are genetically distinct species. In their study, the researchers did not find a unique ancestry in either that could not be explained by inter-breeding between gray wolves and coyotes.

"If you did this same experiment with humans -- human genomes from Eurasia -- you would find that one to four percent of the human genome has what looks like strange genomic elements from another species: Neanderthals," Wayne said. "In red wolves and eastern wolves, we thought it might be at least 10 to 20 percent of the genome that could not be explained by ancestry from gray wolves and coyotes. However, we found just three to four percent, on average -- similar to that found in individuals from the same species when compared to our small reference set."

Pure eastern wolves were thought to reside in Ontario's Algonquin Provincial Park. The researchers studied two samples from Algonquin Provincial Park and found they were about 50 percent gray wolf, 50 percent coyote.

Biologists mistakenly classified the offspring of gray wolves and coyotes as red wolves or eastern wolves, but the new genomic data suggest they are hybrids. "These gray wolf-coyote hybrids look distinct and were mistaken as a distinct species," Wayne said.

Eventually, after the extinction of gray wolves in the American south, the red wolves could mate only with one another and coyotes, and became increasingly coyote-like.

Red wolves turn out to be about 25 percent gray wolf and 75 percent coyote, while the eastern wolf's ancestry is approximately 75 percent gray wolf and 25 percent coyote, Wayne said. (Wayne's research team published findings in the journal Nature in 1991 suggesting red wolves were a mixture of gray wolves and coyotes.)

Although the red wolf, listed as an endangered species in 1973, is not a distinct species, Wayne believes it is worth conserving; it is the only repository of the gray wolf genes that existed in the American South, he said.

The researchers analyzed SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) -- tiny variations in a genetic sequence, and used sophisticated statistical approaches. In the more than two dozen genomes, they found 5.4 million differences in SNPs, a very large number.

Wayne said the Endangered Species Act has been extremely effective. He adds, however, that when it was formulated in the 1970s, biologists thought species tended not to inter-breed with other species, and that if there were hybrids, they were not as fit. The scientific view has changed substantially since then. Inter-breeding in the wild is common and may even be beneficial, he said. The researchers believe the Endangered Species Act should be applied with more flexibility to allow protection of hybrids in some cases (it currently does not), and scientists have made several suggestions about how this might be done without a change in the law, Wayne said.

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Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Los Angeles. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Bridgett M. Vonholdt, James A. Cahill, Zhenxin Fan, Ilan Gronau, Jacqueline Robinson, John P. Pollinger, Beth Shapiro, Jeff Wall and Robert K. Wayne. Whole-genome sequence analysis shows that two endemic species of North American wolf are admixtures of the coyote and gray wolf. Science Advances, 2016 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1501714

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University of California - Los Angeles. "Should the gray wolf keep its endangered species protection? New genomic research provides the scientific answer." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 July 2016. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160727150802.htm>.