The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission says a radio-collared Red Wolf was found dead from a gunshot wound on January 7 in Tyrrell County, southwest of Columbia, N.C. This is the first Red Wolf death of 2014.
Fourteen wild Red Wolves were known to have died in 2013, including three that were hit and killed by vehicles. Of those killed, one death was the result of non-management related actions, and nine confirmed or suspected gunshot deaths. A reward of up to $26,000 is being offered for information on the shooting of any Red Wolf. Red Wolves are protected under the Endangered Species Act and the shooting of one carries with it criminal prosecution and up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine per shooting.
Red Wolves are a stable hybrid of a Coyote and a Grey Wolf, with about 80 percent of the gene pool Coyote, and 20 percent Grey Wolf.
The Eastern Coyote is also a hybrid between a Coyote and a Grey Wolf, but with perhaps 95 percent of the gene pool Coyote and about 5% or less Grey Wolf.
The Eastern Wolf is distinct from the Red Wolf, and is about 50 percent Grey Wolf and 50 percent Coyote.
All three animals may have a small shot of domestic dog genes coursing through their veins, but those genes are a very minor factor.
11 comments:
Good Morning, and thanks for your comment. It's nice to see that new information is welcomed and appreciated on this blog. And by the way, I live in a rural area with dogs and other domestic critters on our farm - including eastern coyotes! That said, may I offer this information - which is not intended to preach at you or change your opinion of canid predators, but just to set the scientific record straight. Red wolves have been determined by recent genetic studies to be a distinct species separate from gray wolves. While certainly there is still some argument among scientists about this (science is never settled!), the main scientific community does accept the notion that the GRAY wolf evolved in Eurasia and the RED wolf and (recent studies conclude) the EASTERN wolf evolved in North America. The red wolf and the eastern wolf are related to coyotes. The gray wolf is not, which may explain why gray wolves and coyotes do not mate and produce offspring in the Northern Rockies, for instance. So the theories that red wolves are hybrids between gray wolves and coyotes (long held by people like Robert Wayne) has been rebutted by a number of genetic studies. The eastern coyotes, like the big ones around our farm, are a mixture of coyote and Eastern wolf (there are no red wolves here). Thank you for the opportunity to comment, and I hope you will accept my remarks in the spirit of honest discussion. There is too much accusatory shouting going on everywhere in the social media!!
The red wolf and the eastern coyote are both hybrids and hybrid animals are fairly common. Lots of posts on this blog about genetics, but start here >> http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2009/03/darwin-drives-hybrid-animal.html?m=1
Science, at this point, is about creating species and divisions for naming, political, and fundraising purposes. The joke becomes when an animal is 12 percent wolf and 88 percent coyote has a bounty on its head in Virginia, but an animal that is 15 percent wolf and 85 percent coyote is a protected species with a jail sentence attached to its death.
Hello, PBurns, and glad you posted a comment. Our farm is actually in VA, and we have lived here for a long time. There is no state-wide bounty on coyotes in VA - bounties are established by individual counties at their discretion. There is no bounty in the county where we live. We have a lot of these critters, but most of us around here know that the payment of bounties does nothing to reduce coyote numbers. We coexist with them - even our neighbor who raises sheep has no problem because of her non-lethal predator control program. All that aside, it's pointless to argue with anyone who is firmly convinced of the truth of those percentages you cite. I could send you articles in the scientific journals from geneticists and biologists whose work does not support what you insist is true. Anyway, we have a robust deer population around here in spite of the coyotes - too many deer, in fact. But there's plenty of venison for the barn freezer for sure. We see value in all the wildlife around here. But that's our choice. Crazy, I guess!
Something like 15 Virginia counties have bounties on coyotes, but I agree it's a pointless exercise. Numbers are going up and will continue to go up, as they are doing all over. Virginia is said to have a population of about 50,000 coyotes.
One of the more interesting tests in the species game is to see what the people and the animals DO. For example, in Florida, they quietly brought in lions from Texas so "help along" the inbred population in Florida. The result was an instant increase in fecundity, but the loss of the always-ridiculous claim that Florida lions were different from those in Texas, Colorado or Montanta. One nation, one mountain lion.
Ditto for the Red Wolf where there is a wide band of trap-neuter-release around the Alligator in order to "protect" the Red Wolf from cross breeding with coyotes. It seems the Red Wolf has no problem with the idea -- it's a human hang up.
Where things get perverse is when we start killing large numbers of animals of one kind or another in order to "preserve" a genetic purity that never existed or a myth based on nonsense. We are on the cusp of mass-poisoning of streams out west in order to "eradicate" stocked trout, while in the West there is (attempted) mass killing of barred owls to "protect" spotted owls with which they freely interbreed.
Big bucks swings in these debates. Research grants are at stake, along with direct mail campaigns, protected species status, land protection, etc. At some point there is a point, but often enough common sense takes the back seat.
First, applause to Terrierman for posting this discussion. It's refreshing to escape from some of the generic Facebook rants where people with divergent viewpoint seem more interesting in who can win at the insult exchange! PBurns and I disagree about the value of restoring the red wolf to some portion(s) of it historical range, and we don't agree on the taxonomy, either. But that's perfectly fine. I do agree with PBurns that we have to examine VERY carefully the cost/benefit of trying to preserve the purity of species that are inclined to interbreed and produce viable and robust offspring. These decisions have to be driven by rational thinking and not bleeding-heart emotion. The issues with wild canids are particularly complex. "Species" is not a hard-edged and clear concept, and it's a slippery term when used in the world of canids.
Gray wolves do not, as far as we know, breed with coyotes. Otherwise, we would have coyote/gray wolf hybrids in the West. Some geneticists conclude this is because the two species are not related whereas red wolves and eastern wolves are related to coyotes and can, therefore, breed and produce hybrids that here where I live in VA we call coywolves (as do people in the Adirondacks, for instance - or they call them brush wolves). My position, based on a lot of research and direct association with researchers themselves is that the red wolf populated the eastern seaboard for a very long time before coyotes inflitrated the landscape after wolves were systematically and ruthlessly exterminated. Many taxonomists agree that whatever the red wolf is and whatever its orgin, it has been around for thousands of years. Thus, many of us support the effort to protect and restore it. BUT. PBurns' argument that things get can get perverse and that politics often drives policy rather than common sense is a legitmate and compelling viewpoint. Thanks for this discussion! And Terrierman, your dogs are awesome!!!
Ok, I lied! That last comment turns out not to be the final one. Just wanted to say that I must have been having bad brain blood flow these past 2 days not to realize that P Burns and Terrierman are one and the same! Chalk it up to Dumb Blonde Syndrome on my part! At any rate, I will say once again that I love your articles! I am glad I discovered them on the blog!
Curious what the source of your definitions of red wolf, Eastern Coyote and Eastern Wolf are - have you found some more recent studies than the 2012 "decision" that Canis Rufous is a distinct species (as "Red Wolf" mentioned).
I didn't find it in the discussion on hybrids you replied with. Latest thorough discussion on this in the scientific community: Chambers SM, Fain SR, Fazio B, Amaral M (2012). "An account of the taxonomy of North American wolves from morphological and genetic analyses". North American Fauna 77.
Definitions are for dictionaries. They have the "smell of the lamp" about them, rather than they dog or the wolf.
Wolves, dogs, coyotes, golden jackals, and dingoes all freely interbreed with fertile young, and only a few cultural issues are the barrier (estrus cycles, vocalization , etc.) Think of it as humans with different languages, diets, traditions, etc. All interbreed, all one species, no question. If humans were dogs, however, we would say every race was a species. Ridiculous for humans and ridiculous for these animals as well.
That said, if humans want to make distinctions that the animals do not necessarily salute, see >> http://www.projectcoyote.org/newsreleases/news_eastern.html
Missed this. Will watch it later >>
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/meet-the-coywolf/meet-the-coywolf/8605/
You said: "Definitions are for dictionaries. They have the "smell of the lamp" about them, rather than they dog or the wolf"
Right. I'm asking about your definitions of Red Wolf/Eastern Wolf.
If someone respected says 'here's a definition', it can become the definition in the mind of their followers/supporters.
I (and the general reading public, most likely) took your descriptions of what these were as "Definitions".
I acknowledge that hybrids exist, but why not call the hybrid a Borderless Collie Wolf or a Petit Griffon Blunderbuss (or a Wolf-dog /Coydog hybrid, as the scientific literature does) instead of a name that HAS a meaning already?
Call 'em whatever you want. The simple fact is that the "red wolf" is so un-distinguishable from an Easter Coyote/coyote that the preservation of the "species" is accomplished by sterilizing coyotes in the area around the Alligator in order to prevent cross breeding which would otherwise occur.
Now hte "red wolves" are being shot and the DNR down there think it might be coyote hunters who cannot tell them apart.
It all becomes a bit amusing -- like the folks in the AKC who says a dog is a "mongrel" if it crossed with unregistered stock. The only question a working dog man asks, is can it do the job? Ditto for the quarry of the red wolf and and the coyote, coy-dog, coy-wolf, etc. It's taxonomic nonsense, on one side to prop up the Kennel Club coffers and on the other to prop up research and cause coffers. If the prey does not care and the coyote/wolf does not care, why do we? Why do you?
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