A mystery in gray fur gets thicker
First published: Sunday, March 21, 2004
Mother Nature will have a good howl over this one.
After years of rancorous public debate about whether wolves should be reintroduced into New York state, there’s proof at least one wolf has resolved the matter on its own.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service labs in Ashland, Ore., have confirmed that a tanned pelt of what state Department of Environmental Conservation biologists had thought was an unusually large hybrid coyote actually belonged to a 100 percent pure male gray wolf.
A true eastern timber wolf taken in New York state, near the back side of Great Sacandaga Lake, by Russ Lawrence of Edinburgh, Saratoga County, on a January evening in 2002.
Not the smaller red wolf from Algonquin Park in Ontario that’s been known to cross a frozen St. Lawrence River. And not some level of wolf-dog-coyote mix. The real thing.
The first known gray wolf ever shot, found or taken in the wild in New York.
“Of course, one wolf does not a population make,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Diana Weaver cautioned.
As excited as the Fish and Wildlife Service is about the news, Weaver says the staff would be uncorking the good stuff if there was proof of breeding pairs or a self-sustaining population. A single wolf could be an escapee from a private owner or zoo, and not a natural migrant. This marks only the fifth wolf in eastern North America confirmed by the Fish and Wildlife labs, says Weaver. Two from Maine, in 1993 and 1996; one from Vermont in 1997, and one from Quebec in 2002.
The presence of this Empire State gray wolf raises staggering possibilities for those who thought they knew what top predators are out there in the New York wild.
For years, the national advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife tried but failed to launch a reintroduction of wolves in this state as they had in Yellowstone National Park. The plan was shelved about five years ago after a frosty reception from Adirondack communities, and following a commissioned genetic study that concluded gray wolves were never native in the first place, and that red wolves would be quickly hybridized with coyotes.
Now, those assumptions among others, need re-examination.
Are timber wolves, as some biologists believe, on the move from Wisconsin and Minnesota over the Great Lakes, down into New York, quietly infiltrating habitat we thought was locked up by big, frisky coyotes? Wolves and coyotes, though, aren’t supposed to get along.
What if they didn’t see the memo and actually can be compatible hunters? There are certainly plenty of deer available, which is the prime prey for wolves.
Also, community fears of what wolves in our back country would do to domestic animals and wildlife — what helped scuttle the Defenders of Wildlife plans — come into question. We didn’t have a clue there was even one wolf running around out there until two years after it was shot. It seems at least one wolf can be virtually invisible to the public. A single gray wolf pelt taken from Russ Lawrence’s wall by a U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent a couple of months ago, acting on a tip from an unnamed wildlife activist in Maine, now presents us with an exciting mystery to resolve.
About the only character in this real-life drama who now has a definitive answer is Russ Lawrence himself, even if it isn’t the one he’d hoped for.
Weaver says there are no plans to prosecute Lawrence for shooting the wolf since he reasonably believed it to be bubba coyote. But the Endangered Species Act calls for the confiscation of feathers, fur and random parts in these situations.
Which means Lawrence will likely have to find another wall hanging.