Another fine Trent University researcher, Tyler Wheeldon bringing to life via slide show how the Wolves occupying the Northern Great Lakes region are primarily hybrids of Gray(C.lupus) and Eastern(C.lycaon) wolves......................with perhaps the initial hybridization event occuring during the early European contact period AD 1500 thru 1800.
Tyler reinforces that there is no evidence that Western Coyotes and Gray Wolves hybridize..................while Eastern Wolves and Coyotes can and often do(especially when Eastern Wolves are under stress and human persecution.......................................
Other revelations include questioning whether the Gray Wolf population is accurately counted when currently Great Lakes Wolves are included in that count and with Wheeldon postulating that those Great Lakes Wolves are not pure Grays.....................................
Both with the previous posted Linda Rutlege slide show and now Todd's fine work, I always go back to the question of whether the Wolves in a given region can fulfill their historical job of preying on the big hoofed herbivores...............Buffalo, Caribou, Elk Pronghorns, Moose, Deer and Beaver......................I do not care much if Wolves "cross party lines" and hybridize, as long as they can come to the plate and prey on the large plant eaters, that is all that I think anyone should care about....................If as Linda(perhaps Todd) and so many of their colleagues believe that prior to European contact that both the gray and eastern wolf occupied New England and a fair portion of the Mid-Atlantic States with the bigger Gray preying on Moose, Elk and Woodland Bison and the smaller Eastern Wolf dining on deer, that must have been a sight to behold...........................a bit a "Sereghetti" in the USA and Canada.
Perhaps one day again, this will come to pass........................I for one, hope that it will.
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