"Eastern Wolves (Canis lycaon) in Ontario and Quebec are vulnerable to legal hunting and trapping outside protected regions (especially because they can easily be misidentified as Eastern Coyotes), and they are susceptible to vehicle collisions in areas of high secondary road density (Benson et al., 2014)"............... "Eastern Wolf persistence is further complicated by hybridization with Eastern Coyotes (Canis latrans var.), a pattern that is exacerbated by high rates of human-caused Eastern Wolf mortality (Rutledge et al., 2012; Benson et al., 2014)"................ Once thought to have occurred across southern Ontario and Quebec into the eastern United States, Eastern Wolves are now limited to a small, centralized region in and around Algonquin Provincial Park (APP) in south-central Ontario (Rutledge et al., 2010a,b; Benson et al., 2012a,b)"................. "Their status as a species at risk has recently been re-assessed by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) with a recommended scientific name change from Canis lupus lycaon to Canis lycaon sp. cf. and status change from Special Concern to Threatened (COSEWIC, 2015)"...................... "Although Benson et al. (2012a,b) noted the presence of Eastern Wolves in Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park and in wildlife management units (WMUs) west of Algonquin Park, other areas of southern Ontario, including various remote and protected regions, have not been adequately surveyed" ..................."In the eastern USA where Eastern Wolves once roamed, conservation efforts have managed to slow the rate at which mammals are declining".............."However, they have been unable to offset the continuing impacts of human habitat alteration and overexploitation (Hoffmann et al., 2010)"............. "These factors present significant challenges to any natural recolonization by Eastern Wolves into Quebec and the north-eastern United States".................Like in Yellowstone, it appears that there will have to be a human willingness to re-introduce Eastern Wolves into the regions of New England, the Adirondacks, the Catskills and Appalachian spine where prey densities of deer and beaver are substantial and road and human densities are minimal---These areas have already been surveyed by biologists and hundreds of Wolves can make a living in these regions if the political will to make it a reality comes to be

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ddi.12496/full

Patchy distribution and low effective population size raise concern for an at-risk top predator

Authors

• 
  

  
  

• 
  

• 
  

• 
  

• 
  

• 
  

• First published: 26 October 2016Full publication history
• DOI: 10.1111/ddi.12496View/save citation
• 
  

Abstract

Aim

Understanding carnivore distribution is important for management decisions that aim to restore naturally regulated ecosystems and preserve biodiversity. Eastern Wolves, a species at risk in Canada, are centralized in Algonquin Provincial Park and their ability to disperse and establish themselves elsewhere is limited by human-caused mortality associated with hunting, trapping and vehicle collisions. Here, we refine our understanding of Eastern Wolf distribution and provide the first estimates of their effective population size.

The Eastern Wolf

Location

Southern Ontario and Gatineau Quebec.

location of Eastern Wolves(red circles)

Eastern Wolf in Algonquin Park