New species, said to to be emerging from the southern Algonquin Park region of Ontario. This presents problems for Durham Region farmers who have lost over 500 stock animals to attacks. Now they are spreading across Ontario.
Dudlow

http://news.therecord.com/printArticle/585939

Meet the coywolf: Hybrid animals plaguing area east of Toronto[size="4"][/size]
TheRecord.com - CanadaWorld - Meet the coywolf: Hybrid animals plaguing area east of Toronto

By Carola Vyhnak, Toronto Star
Is it a coyote? Is it a wolf?

Yes and yes. It’s a “coywolf.”

The predators that are plaguing Durham Region and showing up in urban areas appear to be an emerging species resulting from wolves and coyotes interbreeding.

The larger, highly adaptable animals “have the wolf characteristics of pack hunting and aggression and the coyote characteristics of lack of fear of human-developed areas,” says Trent University geneticist Bradley White, who’s been studying the hybrids for 12 years.

We’re seeing “evolution in action,” he says.

But that combination of genetic material from both species has spelled trouble for farmers, who are losing a growing number of livestock to predators.

They report attacks by animals that are bigger, bolder and smarter than regular coyotes. They say hunting in packs to prey on sheep and cattle in broad daylight is becoming a common behaviour.

Durham Region farmers have suffered the most damage to livestock in the province. Last year the food and agriculture ministry paid out a total compensation of $168,000 in the region for 545 dead or injured animals.

Commonly called eastern coyotes, the creatures are actually a mixture of western coyote and eastern wolf that comes from a constantly evolving gene pool, says White, chair and professor of biology in Peterborough.

Going back 100 years, deforestation, wolf control programs and changing habitat, ecosystems and prey conspired to drive down the wolf population. Meanwhile, the number of coyotes – whose original range was in western North America – grew, thanks to their ability to adapt and reproduce with ease. The two species started to interbreed, White explains.

“In many ways, this animal is a creation of human impact on the planet,” says White.

Although the coywolf hybrid has only recently been verified through genetic research, White believes they started appearing in southern Algonquin Park back in the 1920s.

Colleague Paul Wilson, a wildlife genetics specialist, says the genetic gumbo from which coywolves emerge produces some that are more wolf-like, while others have more coyote characteristics. But they’re definitely bigger.

“Some of these are 80-pound animals, double the size of a typical coyote that used to be 40 pounds.”

But there’s no cause for alarm, says John Pisapio, a wildlife biologist with the Ministry of Natural Resources, which is studying the role of coyotes and wolves in the ecosystem.

Hybrids may be larger but there’s no evidence the population as a whole is more aggressive or prone to aberrant behaviour, he says.

He agrees predation on livestock is a concern – they do kill sheep and smaller animals – but insists attacks on cattle are unusual.

“As a biologist I find it hard to explain how a coyote brings down a 900-pound steer.”

In some cases, coyotes might just be feeding on an animal that died from other causes, he says.

The population growth is a natural upswing following a mange epidemic that wiped out big numbers eight or nine years ago, he adds.

Pisapio says instances of fearlessness or brazen attacks are usually the result of coyotes that have come to associate food with people and lose their natural fear of humans.

That belief is echoed by Johnny, “The Critter Gitter,” who didn’t want his last name used because people don’t like that he kills problem wildlife for a living.

“I kill coyotes. I don’t sugarcoat it,” he says.

But he feels sympathy for them.

“Humans are to blame for making monsters of them,” he says. Coyotes are attracted by pet food and garbage left lying around in urban areas, and deadstock on farms.

They’re not all bad and often get the blame when dogs kill livestock, he says. Johnny also doubts they’re making a regular meal of cattle. During the 30 years he’s worked in the province, he’s seen only a few cases of “large, healthy animals taken down by coyotes.”

But as coywolves become more urbanized and their relationship with people continues to evolve, city dwellers can expect problems, says White, suggesting a control program may be needed at some point.

“They will clearly bump into human activities, and there will be pets eaten in Rouge Valley.”

this is interesting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coywolf

I wonder how bigfoot feels about these coy wolves.


There, now it's bigfoot related.

Thats wonderful news.... An animal with the pack hunting instincts of the wolf along with the fearlessness of coyotes..nice. Biologist have long enjoyed a heated debate as to the wolf possibly inbreeding and inter-breeding itself into extinction. I guess this is another notch on the belt of those who believe that they in fact are. Inbreeding among North American wolf populations has already caused a myriad of genetic abnormalities. Mainly bone related.

A legal battle is raging on over whether gray wolves should be removed from the endangered species list in both the Northern Rockies and the Great Lakes region, with the federal government and environmentalists fighting over whether the wolf populations have recovered. But the situation has been made more complicated by a biological battle over whether the present-day wolves are the same animals, genetically speaking, as the wolves who lived in North American forests hundreds of years ago.

The court cases began when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lifted protections from wolves in the Great Lakes states in 2007, and from wolves in the Rockies earlier this year. Environmental groups contested both decisions. The Great Lakes decision was overturned in September when a judge said the wildlife agency hadn’t followed the law; the Northern Rockies ruling covering the states of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana was also overturned. After wolves were allowed to be shot on sight across most of Wyoming — and all three states began planning public hunts — U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in July issued an injunction to block the killings. On Tuesday, Molloy went a step further, restoring the animal’s endangered status [AP]. However, wildlife officials say they’ll try to delist the wolves again in 2009.

The biological complication stems from a genetic study of the Great Lakes wolves conducted by Jennifer Leonard, which showed that these wolves are now genetically distinct from the grey wolves which populated the area before humans cleared the forests. Leonard’s DNA analysis reveals that the wolves have hybridised with coyotes. If wolf-coyote hybridisation in this area follows the same pattern as it has in southern states, grey wolves could be in trouble. “In the southern US, hybridisation is a major threat to the red wolf,” says Leonard. It too is mating with coyotes, and because coyotes outnumber the red wolves, the hybrids are back-crossing with coyotes to the extent that the red wolves could be subsumed into the coyote population [New Scientist]. Leonard sees her findings as an argument for keeping wolves on the endangered species list while more research is done.

But other biologists have found fault with Leonard’s study, and believe that wolf populations are thriving, sustainable, and wolf-like enough to fit the bill. Biologist Tyler Wheeldon recently conducted his own study, and he concludes that the wolf population in the Great Lakes is fairly similar to its make-up in the 1900s, and thus no longer endangered. “Today we have a large top predator which is not coyote-like, which is what they wanted to restore,” says Wheeldon. “If you have a recovered population that is filling the role of the wolf, we shouldn’t worry if it’s exactly what used to be there” [Nature News].

Personally I find the whole thing a red herring. It is true that wolves do occasionally hybridize with coyotes as well as domestic dogs. That does not make them any less wolves. Few people know that most bison, except for the herds in Yellowstone and Montana, are really bison/cattle hybrids.
The wolves today in North America are not identical with those that roamed this subcontinent even a few hundred years ago. Of the 23 wolf subspecies taxonomist Edward Goldman identified in 1945, we have lost seven, mostly due to deliberate human actions. We now recognize at least three living subspecies, the “Tundra” and the “Timber” wolves, as well as Canis rufus.
What is important is that there is once again a large wolf who acts as keystone predator, brought back to a mere 5% of its former range.
The chance of Canis lupus hybridizing to a significant extent with coyotes is slim. Unlike their much smaller southeastern cousin, the red wolf, Timber wolves usually kill coyotes as well as Canis familiaris whenever they can catch them.
Animals (and plants) frequently interbreed with close relatives. This is one of the ways evolution works. There is evidence that even Homo sapiens interbred with his kissing cousin, Neanderthalis (So is Uncle Hairy really possibly "Uncle" Hairy? Hmmmm)

Good article Dantallus. Very interesting. I, for one, hope the wolf species maintains its distinction from the coyote species. I guess time will tell. My wolves are domesticated since living with my husband and I since pups, However, they have maintained their wild instincts in spite of living with us and are quite afraid of people other than my husband and I. That being said, we cannot allow them to roam free because each time they've escaped their containment the first thing they went for was the neighborhood dogs to kill them. I've never seen an occasion when there wasn't a fight and quick take down by the wolf. I have no doubt they'd do the same thing to any coyote they ran across. That doesn't mean anything in the greater scheme of things on a national scale, but I thought I'd throw that in since I'm quite familiar with the wolves here on our property and they have no interest that I've observed in interbreeding with the canine population outside their containment.

T

hey everyone gm this very inportant informative new article about coywolves ty bill g

Man, this is scary stuff... and I thought Dogyotes were bad....