Did I capture a wolf hybrid on my game cam?

Mike S

Mike S

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Caught this one the other night on my cam in northern MA. What do you think?
 

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No, you did not. That's a coyote. A plain boring ol coyote.

They're starting to look a little bigger as their winter coats are starting to come in. That animal weighs about 35 pounds. Less than half the average wolf.

Also, consider the fact that in order for there to even be the possibility of a hybrid, something that is still disputed by scientists as wolves and coyotes hate each other and wolves kill coyotes on site generally, they would have to be wolves in the area for the coyotes to mate with. Massachusetts doesn't have wolves. Neither does vermont, new hampshire, or Maine. In fact there isn't a wolf population anywhere in the entire northeastern part of the country. You got to go all the way out to Michigan before you are in a state that has any Wolves at all.
 
Our coyotes are much bigger than 35# in my AO. We're talking close to German Shepherd size.

I'm a color-blind fellow, so COLOR isn't the first thing I see. First it's "dog!" then "whoops - nope. Coywolfie."
 
narrow snout indicates coyote to me.. That, and the fact that they're SO rare here.. it's unlikely you or your camera would ever see one.. playing the odds here.
 
Lots of good wolf info here.

www.themeateater.com

Ep. 605: A Woman Among Wolves | MeatEater Podcasts

Steven Rinella talks with Diane Boyd, Janis Putelis, Brody Henderson, Randall Williams, Seth Morris, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider. Topics discussed: Diane Boyd’s new book A Woman Among Wolves; a tame pet pigeon with the bird sitter; when Diane was on Ep. 166: Hunting with Teeth; it’s...
www.themeateater.com www.themeateater.com
 
Interesting read for the brief bit I caught before hitting reply. ROFL. (Hey - let's be a typical NES'er!)

2 questions:

Are New England coyotes bigger than. . . say, Montana coyotes? Actual question, not trying to be a smart-ass.

Why were dinosaurs so huge if we think of dinosaur era as warmer then now????? I've wondered about this for a while. You don't get massive fauna in jungle climates. You get them in cooler-than-temperate climates. . . . OR, do we find skeletal remains of bigger dinosaurs OR just focus on them when the vast vast majority were tiny little buggers????
 
arlow said:
All dogs wild and domestic have wolf dna. Northern yotes are bigger because of Bergman's rule, not because of hybridization.

Click to expand...

​

There's tons of easily searched dna studies and data showing eastern coyotes becoming more or less a new subspecies from their original western counterparts, mostly due to hybridization with wolves and domestic dogs. Not trace dna amounts either, it's getting upward of a 60/40% mix in many cases, the 40% itself comprising sometimes near equal mixes of wolf and domestic dog.
This has been also largely happening in recent history, like 1990's and in some instances to the point where some eastern wolf species are being hybridized out of existence. Size is only one obvious aspect of it, behavior is another significant tell as well.

Anyway, here's one such study...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Assessment of coyote-wolf-dog admixture using ancestry-informative diagnostic SNPs

The evolutionary importance of hybridization as a source of new adaptive genetic variation is rapidly gaining recognition. Hybridization between coyotes and wolves may have introduced adaptive alleles into the coyote gene pool that facilitated an expansion ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Abstact;

The evolutionary importance of hybridization as a source of new adaptive genetic variation is rapidly gaining recognition. Hybridization between coyotes and wolves may have introduced adaptive alleles into the coyote gene pool that facilitated an expansion in their geographic range and dietary niche. Furthermore, hybridization between coyotes and domestic dogs may facilitate adaptation to human-dominated environments. We genotyped 63 ancestry-informative single nucleotide polymorphisms in 427 canids in order to examine the prevalence, spatial distribution, and ecology of admixture in eastern coyotes. Using multivariate methods and Bayesian clustering analyses, we estimated the relative contributions of western coyotes, western and eastern wolves, and domestic dogs to the admixed ancestry of Ohio and eastern coyotes. We found that eastern coyotes form an extensive hybrid swarm, with all our samples having varying levels of admixture. Ohio coyotes, previously thought to be free of admixture, are also highly admixed with wolves and dogs. Coyotes in areas of high deer density are genetically more wolf-like, suggesting that natural selection for wolf-like traits may result in local adaptation at a fine geographic scale. Our results, in light of other previously published studies of admixture in Canis, reveal a pattern of sex-biased hybridization, presumably generated by male wolves and dogs mating with female coyotes. This study is the most comprehensive genetic survey of admixture in eastern coyotes and demonstrates that the frequency and scope of hybridization can be quantified with relatively few ancestry-informative markers.
 
pupchow said:
What is the reason behind the fascination with the eastern coyote and wolves? Is there some sort of agenda behind this line of thinking?

My MA version of CliffsNotes for Wile E. https://www.mass.gov/info-details/coyote-hunting-regulations
Click to expand...
Yes it all started with Dr Jonathan Way. A radical anti hunting naturalist who has been trying to end coyote hunting for decades. He is from the cape and has been known to stalk people coyote hunting and try to ruin their hunts. In fact he got shot trying to ruin someones hunt being mistaken for a coyote sneaking up on their set up disguised as a coyote and with his domestic dog accompanying him. He has been publishing studies trying to reclassify the coyote as a new subspecies of wolf in order to get them reclassified as endangered species to end coyote hunting.

His published "studies" are the jumping off point of all the other bullshit studies like posted above by wcorey.
 
arlow said:
Yes it all started with Dr Jonathan Way. A radical anti hunting naturalist who has been trying to end coyote hunting for decades. He is from the cape and has been known to stalk people coyote hunting and try to ruin their hunts. In fact he got shot trying to ruin someones hunt being mistaken for a coyote sneaking up on their set up disguised as a coyote and with his domestic dog accompanying him. He has been publishing studies trying to reclassify the coyote as a new subspecies of wolf in order to get them reclassified as endangered species to end coyote hunting.

His published "studies" are the jumping off point of all the other bullshit studies like posted above by wcorey.
Click to expand...
Makes sense why that hypothesis wasn't too scientific.
 
Nineties up to about 06/07 a guy in Lempster NH had at least 40 to 50 Wolf Hybrids on his property. He had many escape over the years and never told anyone. One escape involved 6 to 8 Hybrids and learning of the escape NH tried to hunt them down but largely failed. NH eventually shut the place down. Some years back the wife and I were making the trip down to Hillsboro at dusk just out of Washington when a large dog/Hybrid came out of a boggy area to my left and crossed 31 into another boggy area. My wife says OMG Harry was that a wolf. I said no but either a kick ass Coyote or a Hybrid for sure.
 
There is a great documentary on PBS about "Coy-Wolf" in the Northeast, and I believe it is on demand.

Scientists claim they can trace the DNA to a single pack of wolves in Southern Ontario. Historically, when wolves encounter coyote, they would kill them. Over a period of a few years, there was a lack of females available to this particular pack, so they began to mate with the female coyote.

The main nucleus of pure eastern wolves is currently concentrated within Algonquin Provincial Park. This susceptibility to hybridization led to the eastern wolf being listed as Special Concern under the Canadian Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife and with the Committee on the Status of Species at Risk in Ontario. By 2001, protection was extended to eastern wolves occurring on the outskirts of the park, thus no longer depriving Park eastern wolves of future pure-blooded mates. By 2012, the genetic composition of the park's eastern wolves was roughly restored to what it was in the mid-1960s, rather than in the 1980s–1990s, when the majority of wolves had large amounts of coyote DNA
Click to expand...

So yeah... yotes in the Northeast have some wolf and some dog in them, and are much bigger than yotes in the desert Southwest, but they are still yotes.
A big coyote is about 40lbs and a very big coyote is about 50lbs. People often claim they see yotes as "big as a German Shepard" but they are actually about half the size. Depending on the time of year and length of coat they can look deceptively large due to their fluffy coat.
 
Also remember all along the Canada/VT/NH/ME border there are many wolfs, many. A decent group is in Sherbrooke, a mere 50 miles from the border. An easy day trip for any wolf to make if inclined to do so.
 
Dennis in MA said:
Interesting read for the brief bit I caught before hitting reply. ROFL. (Hey - let's be a typical NES'er!)

2 questions:

Are New England coyotes bigger than. . . say, Montana coyotes? Actual question, not trying to be a smart-ass.

Why were dinosaurs so huge if we think of dinosaur era as warmer then now????? I've wondered about this for a while. You don't get massive fauna in jungle climates. You get them in cooler-than-temperate climates. . . . OR, do we find skeletal remains of bigger dinosaurs OR just focus on them when the vast vast majority were tiny little buggers????
Click to expand...
I’ve had many encounters here and in Montana hunting over the years and I can say for a fact Ours yotes are much bigger than Montana yotes. They are a hybrid as others have pointed out. That PBS documentary mentioned above was excellent and worth a watch for anyone interested.
 
arlow said:
All dogs wild and domestic have wolf dna. Northern yotes are bigger because of Bergman's rule, not because of hybridization.

Click to expand...
No, there are studies proving that northeastern coyotes have a higher % of wolf DNA than do their cousins out west. There's a thread here somewhere about that. Oh, I see others have responded. I think there's a good argument for the subspecies position.

The pic from @Mike S shows a much more burly animal than you will find outside of New England. I have a similar game pic of a big one and a pic of my Rottweiler from the same spot. Granted the coyote had its winter coat, but it looked close in size. NFW would one of the typically scrawny western coyotes make a similar comparison. I grew up in a rural area of California, lived in the South for many years, and am now here. Doing a lot of hunting, fishing, backpacking, dirt bike riding, etc.- I see coyotes all the time and there's a substantial difference in size and appearance here.
 
ThePreBanMan said:
No, you did not. That's a coyote. A plain boring ol coyote.

They're starting to look a little bigger as their winter coats are starting to come in. That animal weighs about 35 pounds. Less than half the average wolf.

Also, consider the fact that in order for there to even be the possibility of a hybrid, something that is still disputed by scientists as wolves and coyotes hate each other and wolves kill coyotes on site generally, they would have to be wolves in the area for the coyotes to mate with. Massachusetts doesn't have wolves. Neither does vermont, new hampshire, or Maine. In fact there isn't a wolf population anywhere in the entire northeastern part of the country. You got to go all the way out to Michigan before you are in a state that has any Wolves at all.
Click to expand...
Listen to this. It's a good one.

www.themeateater.com

Ep. 605: A Woman Among Wolves | MeatEater Podcasts

Steven Rinella talks with Diane Boyd, Janis Putelis, Brody Henderson, Randall Williams, Seth Morris, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider. Topics discussed: Diane Boyd’s new book A Woman Among Wolves; a tame pet pigeon with the bird sitter; when Diane was on Ep. 166: Hunting with Teeth; it’s...
www.themeateater.com www.themeateater.com
 
Dennis in MA said:
Interesting read for the brief bit I caught before hitting reply. ROFL. (Hey - let's be a typical NES'er!)

2 questions:

Are New England coyotes bigger than. . . say, Montana coyotes? Actual question, not trying to be a smart-ass.
Click to expand...
Abso-f***ing-lutely.

I remember looking to the official info after seeing my first MA coyote in the 90s and the official story was that they should look like ones I had seen in MT. Nope. They aren't even close to the same animal just from the looks of them.
 
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