Lynn Stuter: The truth about the wolves
Note: the following article is an excellent overview of wolf issues. Please click on the link below to read the full article.
The Truth About the Wolves
by Lynn Stuter, News With Views, February 9, 2010 [here]
There a secret, hiding in plain sight, that every American should know about. Your life may depend on it.
In the mid-1990’s, wolves were “re-introduced” to areas of the West under the auspices of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service in accordance with the “Endangered Species Act”.
I will digress here for a moment and explain why quotes are used around the word “re-introduced”. The word re-introduced means to bring back a species indigenous to the area from which it has disappeared or is in danger of becoming extinct.
The wolf indigenous to most parts of the West is called the Timber Wolf or Gray Wolf (canis lupus irremotus). The male of these species, on average, is about 75 lbs; the female is smaller as is usual with most species.
In hearing about wolves invading Idaho, which has the largest contiguous wilderness area of any state in the lower 48, I kept hearing stories about huge animals. One gent told me that a wolf crossed the road in front of his pickup and stood as tall as the hood. I rather discounted it as the proverbial “fish story” where the fish gets bigger with each telling of the story. What he was describing was one big animal considering his pickup was a 4×4.
I would learn that he wasn’t telling a “fish story”. The wolf brought in and turned loose in the Yellowstone National Park and other parts of central Idaho is the Canadian Gray Wolf. If this article is correct, the species of wolf imported is the canis lupus occidentallis or MacKenzie Valley Wolf, a large wolf from Western Canada. One website states that this wolf was imported from Alberta. In searching, there is the canis lupus columbianus, a large wolf found in Yukon, British Columbia and Alberta. Another, canis lupus griseoalbus, is a large wolf found in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Whether one or more of these species, what is obvious is that they are not indigenous to the lower 48.
Males, on average, weigh 130 lbs, the females somewhat smaller. These animals are huge, far outweighing any dog but the mastiff breeds. Were they to stand on their hind legs, put their feet on the shoulders of most people, they would be looking down at them!
Let me be perfectly clear; the Canadian Gray Wolf is not indigenous to the lower 48 states. To claim they are a “re-introduction” is not only misleading but purposely misleading.
That would not be the first or last problem with the “re-introduction” of wolves. … [more]
I do not think there are any decent defensible subspecies of wolves. The body size of wolves is in the first instance a reflection of how well they have been fed - not of their genetics. Stick wolves of any size into a virgin countryside full of prey and the introduced wolves - in 5 generations - will grow into giants! That’s a predictable colonizing effect.
As they eat themselves out of house and home wolves decrease in size until they become 50-60 pound starvation specimens. And that, eventually, is where the Yellowstone wolves are headed - if we do not interfere.
In short, today’s giant wolves in Yellowstone have nothing to do with the size of introduced wolves - although large because they came from an expanding Canadian population - but it has everything to do with how well they have fed themselves since they were introduced. Older, smaller Idaho wolves were probably from a poorly fed population, which is perfectly normal. Body size is immensely flexible.
The basic rule is that in wolves body size increases with latitude until the Arctic Circle and shrinks rapidly as one goes future north. But that’s true of all mammals. Body size increases until about 60ON and then becomes smaller with latitude as one goes further north into the Arctic. The smallest wolves (on average) are therefore those in the very south and in the very north.
Wolves also pick up coyote genes, “red wolf” genes, and dog genes. They form functioning hybrids with coyotes and dogs. On top of that they vary greatly in size, depending on how well they have been feeding. Consequently, there is no mystery to introduced wolves ballooning in size.
by erin
Can anybody site genetic evidence of subspecies designations? Most of the subspecies that are described are based upon geographic locations that create morphological and behavioral differences in groups of wolves (for example, more common coat pelages in certain groups - but remember, all pelages are possible in any group - and hunting behaviors for prey species available). This does not mean that these groups of animals differ genetically as subspecies. However, this is a dangerous discussion in conservation because you open the debate on protected status. Wolves may be endangered in certain heavily impacted habitats and are keystone species, however, C.lupus is not an endangered species in total population. I would like to know if anybody has any scientific genetic evidence of any subspecies of C. lupus, as is possibly the case with C.l.lycaon or C.l.arctos.
Great questions. The discussion is important, though, not dangerous.
See also:
M. A. Cronin. 2007. The Preble’s meadow jumping mouse: subjective subspecies, advocacy and management. Correspondence, Animal Conservation 10 (2007) 159–161 [here]
and
M. A. Cronin. 2006. A Proposal to Eliminate Redundant Terminology for Intra-Species Groups. Wildlife Society Bulletin 34(1):237–241; 2006 [here]
Any animal that can travel great distances, as wolves can and do, is very unlikely to develop distinct genetic sub-species. Large variations in morphology are not indicative of genetic isolation in wolves. However, black coats, red coats, and/or cranial features that make wolves look more like Airedales are telling signs of cross-breeding with other canids. Dogs will be dogs.
In other respects, though, Ms. Suter’s article is very well done, particularly her warnings about the dangers of wolves in our midst.