Are the gray wolves in the Great Lakes region even wolves?

[WQ Project Coordinator]

An article appeared in the New York Times after a scientific article was published delcaring that the wolves in the Great Lakes Region are not the wolves they use to be. In fact, the subspecies of wolf that lived there 100 years ago doesn't exist in the pure form according to the article. They state that the wolves in that region are mixed with the subspecies from Canada and coyotes! This is according to the study of DNA samples from current and past wolves. What does this mean for the "wolves" in the Great Lakes region? It might mean that the wolves in the Yellowstone Ecosystem are even more valuable because they are pure wolves. This could be crucial with the current plans to delist them from the Endangered Species List.

Here is the link to the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/scien ... ref=slogin

What do you think?

[Chenneoue]

They may not be the original type of wolf they were. So maybe therefore the original sub species is now extinct. But nature has taken its course. IF they have bred with other species of gray wolf or even coyote and there was no human interference that was the cause of this inter breeding, just Mother Nature; why should people interfere?

I would hate to see wild animals just doing what they do best, just to have the human race do what we think is best. I hope they don't try doing like what they did with the red wolf, and to find out they had made a mistake.

I guess you could call this evolution... ?

[pawnee]

well first off, new animal types are always evolving and a hybrid could possibly be two animals evolving in order to adapt. Secondly , we can`t know for sure when these wolves mated with coyotes or vice versa, it could have been two years ago or a thousand years ago, I`m not sure of scientists can figure this out. Before the red wolf went extinct in the southern United States, it began breeding with coyotes because there were hardley any other wolves left, if the great lakes wolves are breeding with coyotes than pherhaps its a sign of heavy persection or habitat destruction. There are hardley any wolves in southern Ontario or and with increasing human numbers, it makes it impossible for wolves to travel across the national borders. The wolves in eastern Canada are a diffrent sub-type of wolf known as the Eastern Canadian wolf, and in algonquin park these wolves are known as Canis Lycoan which are believed to be related to the southern american red wolf. You have to protect an animal, even if its a hybrid because to some degree hybridization could be considered natraul.