Wolves May Reintroduce Themselves to East

William K. Stevens, The New York Times, March 4, 1997 (excerpts)

As the endangered gray wolf makes a comeback in the Rocky Mountains and Upper Midwest, some conservationists are training their eyes on the Adirondacks as the next target for re-introducing the great predator. But the wolves may be way ahead of them.

Scientists say that wild Canadian wolves, following an ancient territorial imperative, are already expanding their range in Quebec toward the United States. A new study commissioned by the Wildlife Conservation Society, which has its headquarters at the Bronx Zoo and was formerly called the New York Zoological Society, places them within 40 miles of the Maine border. At least one lone wolf, and maybe more, has already entered the state.

In Maine, the study found, more space and less human activity make the prospects for the long-term re-establishment of the eastern timber wolf, a subspecies of gray wolf, more promising than in northern New York State’s Adirondacks. Moreover, the study says, the Adirondacks are so isolated from the wolf populations living in Canada that natural recolonization is unlikely there.

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