As we Posted the other day, New York State has petitioned the USFW to keep the Gray Wolf federally listed throughout its Eastern range where it is not yet recovered............They are fine with Great Lakes Gray Wolves being delisted because of their populations being robust and continuous through Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan............However, New York and New England have the potential for a Gray Wolf rewilding while not yet a reality..............USFW agrees with Biologists David Mech, Jon Way, Brent Patterson, Linda Rutledge and the full Trent U. team of geneticists and biologists in that the Eastern Wolf is its own species and not a subspecies of the Gray Wolf......The USFW wants to delist the gray wolf in NY and New England and potentially(but not guaranteeing)institute a rewilding plan for the Eastern wolf.............Controversy abounds as the 3 Great Lakes States seek to delist their Wolves which the USFW are saying are a varying population of both Gray and Eastern Wolves.........Will this mean that the delisting requires these States to have a management plan and minimum populations of both Gray and Red wolves?.............. ....From a conservation standpoint, Mech states: "It's nice to know what the origins are(Gray wolves and Eastern wolves) from the standpoint of curiosity, but from a conservation standpoint, it shouldn't make any difference"(as it relates to delisting and managing this "canis soup" swirl of wolf in our Great Lakes region

L. David Mech, senior research scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Northern Prairie Research Center in St. Paul, Minn., and founder of the International Wolf Center in Ely, Minn., is skeptical of the theory that eastern wolves are hybrids.

"How do you reconcile this with the fact that gray wolves typically don't breed with coyotes, but kill them?" Mech said. "We have no records in the West of wolves hybridizing with coyotes, even in areas where single wolves looking for mates have dispersed into the middle of coyote country."

Mech also questioned whether the study(kays et al) tested enough Canadian and North Carolina wolves and whether those specimens were true representatives of those populations. Although 48,000 genetic markers sounds like a lot, it's actually a relatively small part of the entire genetic code, Mech said. So the evidence of a unique eastern wolf ancestor could simply be in another part of the code that wasn't analyzed, he said.

Several researchers who consider the eastern wolf species separate from the gray wolf weighed in recently in an online discussion of the new study. Brent Patterson, a genetics researcher at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, called the study "an important step forward." But until more samples are analyzed, the hypothesis that a North American wolf evolved independently from the gray wolf was still viable, he said.

"It's an academic issue," Mech said. "It's nice to know what the origins are from the standpoint of curiosity, but from a conservation standpoint, it shouldn't make any difference."

David Rabon, coordinator of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Red Wolf Recovery Program in North Carolina, said the federal agency has taken the position that the red wolf is a unique species that warrants protection. The new study, while interesting, won't likely change management decisions, he said.


click here to read Dr. Roland Kays letter to USFW supporting federal delisting of wolves in the Great Lakes States as well as calling for a review of restoration potential through the Northern Appalachians where suitable habitat exists...............Roland is a proponent of the theory that Eastern Wolves are a subspecies of Gray Wolves and not a distinct species unto themselves