It's a very lupus kind of day.
I posted this morning about how some right-wing hysterics are little too quick to "cry wolf" when in comes to canine welfare debates.
Now two wolf stories have come across my desk:
- Wolves kill 120 sheep in a single Montana incidence. This is more sheep than were killed by all wolves in Montana in 2008. More information here. A hat tip to J.R. Abshire's Outdoor Pressroom blog for the heads up.
- Cloned wolf dies. One of the world's first two cloned wolves has died from an apparent infection, just shy of its fouth birthday.
3 comments:
It's been also been wolfy for me today.
I came across this story about supposed red wolves in the Florida Panhandle. http://www.thedestinlog.com/news/class-10765-wolves-newstext.html
There are some on St. Vincent Island, which is a wildlife refuge.
But I don't think any of them have spread to the mainland.
And I don't think any of them have white tail tips-- as in a third of the tail being white.
The video of them is down, but when I checked it earlier today, it looked to me like someone had run across a pack of coydogs, which are more common in subtropical climates. The coyotes have a more irregular breeding season than they do in colder climates, and this provides more opportunity for dogs to breed with them.
As far as I know, no red wolf has a white tail tip.
Great looking animals, and wondferful, wonderful video, but pure coyotes from what I can see.
A white tip on the tail is not that all that unusual for a coyote. These animals look to be on the small side for a red wolf (small than a normal eastern coyote, in fact).
See >> http://science-ed.pnl.gov/pals/resource/cards/coyotes.stm and >> http://www.desertusa.com/june96/du_cycot.html
P.
I've seen them with white tail tips, but never with half their tails covered in white fur.
I think there are traces of dog in them. It's much more likely in Florida and Texas than it is here because of how coyote breeding seasons are.
Maybe I should clarify, these are mostly coyote. I do think there's a dog in there somewhere.
BTW, in side-striped jackals, they always have white-tipped tails.
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