Tag Archives: wolves

Mexican wolves in Arizona, New Mexico

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This video from the USA says about itself:

Mexican Wolf – Canis lupus baileyi

May 12, 2013

After being wiped out in the United States, Mexican wolves were bred in captivity and reintroduced to the wild in Arizona beginning in 1998. They are still very rare in the wild. The Mexican wolf is the most endangered type of wolf in the world.

From Wildlife Extra:

Two pairs of wolves released in Arizona and New Mexico

Wolves released into Gila Wilderness & Apache National Forest

May 2013. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) and the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD) have released a pair of Mexican wolves into the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area of Arizona.

Second pair

In a separate action, the Service also released a second pair of Mexican wolves into the wolf recovery area in New Mexico. Both pairs, selected to increase genetic diversity of the wild wolf population, were previously held at the Service’s Sevilleta Wolf Management Facility where they had undergone an acclimation process to determine their suitability for release.

“We continue to be committed to strategic releases that improve genetic diversity, increase the number of breeding wolves, and offset illegal mortalities in the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area,” said Benjamin Tuggle, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Southwest Regional Director.

“The strategically-planned release of the wolf pair into Arizona is to improve the genetic integrity of the wolf population. The release approaches being used are tailored to encourage these wolves to acclimate and behave as wild wolves. Our experience shows that wild-born, wild-raised wolves have a much better chance at success,” says Director Larry Voyles, AGFD.

Soft release

In Arizona, the Interagency Field Team (IFT) conducted a “soft release” of Mexican wolves F1126 and M1051 (F indicates female and M indicates male) near the Corduroy Creek release site on the Alpine Ranger District in the Apache National Forest.

“We considered several factors in the selection of the release site, including appropriate prey density, distance from occupied residences, seasonal absence of livestock grazing, and occurrence of established wolf packs in the area,” says Chris Bagnoli, the AGFD’s IFT leader. “This particular site was also chosen in close coordination with the public and with approval from the Forest Service.”

The Arizona pair was placed into an enclosure and will be held for a time to acclimate them to their surroundings. They will be released into the primary recovery zone because F1126 does not have previous wild experience. This will be an initial release of F1126 and a translocation of M1051.

Gila wilderness

The Service, in cooperation with the IFT, also conducted a “modified soft release” of Mexican wolves F1108 and M1133 into New Mexico. These wolves will be translocated to an enclosure in the Gila Wilderness. The enclosure is designed so that the wolves can chew through and self-release any time after being placed there. Both F1108 and M1133 have previous wild experience, and so are able to be translocated into the secondary recovery zone in compliance with the existing federal 10(j) rule covering the reintroduction project.

Supplementary feeding

For both the Arizona and New Mexico wolf pairs, the IFT anticipates the wolves will begin utilizing the area around the release sites. The IFT will provide supplemental food while the wolves learn to catch and kill native prey, such as deer and elk, on their own. The supplemental feeding will assist in anchoring the wolves to the area.

75 wolves in the wild

The IFT estimates the population of Mexican wolves in the wild to be a minimum of 75 animals, as determined by their most recent annual survey conducted in January 2013, up from a count of 58 last year.

The Reintroduction Project partners are AGFD, White Mountain Apache Tribe, USDA Forest Service and USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service – Wildlife Services, several participating counties in Arizona, the Eastern Arizona Counties Organization, and the Service.

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Stop United States wolf killing

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From Defenders of Wildlife in the USA:

Keep Wolves Protected: Stop a Delisting Catastrophe!
If you love wolves, we need you to take action immediately.The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is deliberating removing nearly all Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in the lower 48 states, with the possible exception of the Mexican gray wolf. This delisting would be a conservation nightmare.We’re trying to send 100,000 signatures to the Obama administration demanding that wolves keep the federal protection they need to ensure their recovery in the wild. Help us reach 100,000 signatures for wolves, before it?s too late

More than 560 have been killed this season alone, and that number continues to rise.

Delisting would turn wolf management decisions over to the states. Montana, Wyoming and Idaho — all states where wolves have been delisted — have become free-fire zones. More than 1,100 wolves have been killed as a result of hunting and trapping in the Northern Rockies, since Congress stripped them of Endangered Species Act protection in 2011.

Wolves’ lives are at stake and we need to pull out all the stops to ensure they remain protected under the Endangered Species Act. Tell the Obama administration — the important work of wolf recovery is NOT FINISHED — don?t turn back the clock on almost 40 years of wolf conservation.
About Defenders of Wildlife: Defenders of Wildlife is America?s premier advocacy organization working to protect endangered wildlife. Our science and legal teams are renowned in the field. We are leading efforts and speaking out on behalf of wolves and supporters like you in Washington, D.C. to help ensure that our nation?s imperiled wildlife receives the crucial protection they deserve and need to recover.
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Falkland Islands wolves mystery solved

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Old Falkland wolf family tree

From Wildlife Extra:

Mystery solved – Where did Falkland Islands wolves come from?

Ancient DNA solves 320-year-old mystery

March 2013. University of Adelaide researchers have found the answer to one of natural history’s most intriguing puzzles – the origins of the now extinct Falkland Islands wolf and how it came to be the only land-based mammal on the isolated islands – 460km from the nearest land, Argentina.
Previous theories have suggested the wolf somehow rafted on ice or vegetation, crossed via a now-submerged land bridge or was even semi-domesticated and transported by early South American humans.

Darwin questions

The 320-year-old mystery was first recorded by early British explorers in 1690 and raised again by Charles Darwin following his encounter with the famously tame species on his Beagle voyage in 1834.

New stuffed specimen found in New Zealand

Researchers from the University’s Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) extracted tiny pieces of tissue from the skull of a specimen collected personally by Darwin. They also used samples from a previously unknown specimen, which was recently re-discovered as a stuffed exhibit in the attic of Otago Museum in New Zealand.

16,000 years ago

The findings concluded that, unlike earlier theories, the Falkland Islands wolf (Dusicyon australis) only became isolated about 16,000 years ago around the peak of the last glacial period.

“Previous studies used ancient DNA from museum specimens to suggest that the Falkland Islands wolf diverged genetically from its closest living relative, the South American maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus) around seven million years ago. As a result, they estimated that the wolf colonised the islands about 330,000 years ago by unknown means,” says Associate Professor Jeremy Austin, Deputy Director of ACAD and co-lead author with Dr Julien Soubrier.

“Critically, however, these early studies hadn’t included an extinct relative from the mainland, the fox-like Dusicyon avus. We extracted ancient DNA from six specimens of D. avus collected across Argentina and Chile, and made comparisons with a wide group of extinct and living species in the same family.”

ACAD’s analyses showed that D. avus was the closest relative of the Falkland Islands wolf and they separated only 16,000 years ago – but the question of how the island colonisation came about remained. The absence of other mammals argued against any land bridge connection to the mainland.

Eureka moment

“The Eureka moment was finding evidence of submarine terraces off the coast of Argentina,” says study leader Professor Alan Cooper. “They recorded the dramatically lowered sea levels during the Last Glacial Maximum (around 25-18,000 years ago).”

“At that time, there was a shallow and narrow (around 20km) strait between the islands and the mainland, allowing the Falkland Islands wolf to cross when the sea was frozen over, probably while pursuing marine prey like seals or penguins. Other small mammals like rats weren’t able to cross the ice.”

The study was published in Nature Communications.

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Swedish wolves update

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This video is about wolves.

Translated from Vroege Vogels radio in the Netherlands today:

Friday, February 8, 2013 10.10

The Swedish government had recently given permission to shoot 16 wolves. But after fierce protests by pro animal groups this was suspended. Unfortunately, the decision came too late for three wolves.

USA: February 2013. Yet another Red wolf has been shot dead, adding to the spate of Red wolf shootings at the end of 2012. The wolf was found with a suspected gunshot wound on January 18, 2013, north of the Town of Fairfield, in Tyrrell County, North Carolina: here.

Prehistoric wolf bone on Texel island: here.

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Wolf hunting in Sweden

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This video is called PBS Nature 2007 In the Valley of the Wolves.

From Wildlife Extra:

Sweden hunts more wolves ‘to help genetic diversity’

Wolves in Europe being targeted again
February 2012. The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency has authorized the hunting of 16 wolves in what conservationists have described as a surprising U-turn.

According to WWF Sweden “It is a surprising decision that was not included in the management plan for wolves published as recently as last summer.

“This will constitute a complete U-turn compared from what Sweden’s Environmental Protection Agency said a few weeks ago when they announced that the hunt would not be allowed. Since no new scientific information has emerged, this U-turn is a mystery, says Håkan Wirtén, Secretary General of WWF.

The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency has announced permission for “selective and targeted hunt of inbred wolves as a step towards reducing inbreeding and having a sustainable, healthy wolf population. A selective and targeted hunt is the only method that can reduce the level of inbreeding in the short term,” it said. Wildlife Extra questions how hunting solves an inbreeding problem. If the problem is bad, the wolves won’t thrive due to a lack of genetic diversity. There are currently no plans to bring wolves in from Finland or Russia, another way to boost the genetic diversity.

Sweden culled 27 wolves in 2010. Photo: Magnus Elander / www.de5stora.com

Sweden culled 27 wolves in 2010. Photo: Magnus Elander / http://www.de5stora.com

Wolves in Sweden
Estimates made in 2012 put the number of wolves in Sweden at around 270 in about 30 packs. Swedish wolves are almost all descended from 2 pairs that moved into Sweden some 30 years ago, and pro-hunting groups claim that some wolves need to be shot to improve the genetic diversity.

Moose hunting
More cynical observers point out that, as advocated by the King of Sweden recently, hunters don’t like competing with wolves for moose and other animals that they like to kill. Farmers also have an issue as the wolves do take some sheep, and in the north the reindeer herders have issues with the wolves too.

Sweden’s parliament voted to resume a licensed wolf hunt in 2010 after a 46-year hiatus, allowing 27 wolves to be killed. In January 2011, the European Commission reprimanded the Scandinavian country for its wolf hunt.

Radio collared wolves being killed in Spain by local authorities: here.

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Sabre-tooth cat discovery near Las Vegas

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Long before the modern presence of the mafia in Las Vegas in the USA, there were other dangers.

From Associated Press:

Fossils of sabre-tooth cat found in Nevada

Sunday 16 December 2012

Researchers say a pair of fossils unearthed in the hills north of Las Vegas belonged to a sabre-toothed cat.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that a team from California’s San Bernardino County Museum identified the fossils dug up in June as being front leg bones from the extinct predator.

Kathleen Springer, the museum’s senior curator, says the fossils are thought to be approximately 15,590 years old.

The discovery marks the first of its kind in the fossil-rich Upper Las Vegas Wash. Ms Springer heads a team that’s been studying the wash for a decade.

This cat species is Smilodon fatalis; see more on this discovery here. And here.

In dry Nevada, it now seems to be raining cats and dogs :)

This video is called Prehistoric Predators: Dire Wolf.

From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

UNLV team finds evidence of extinct wolf

By Henry Brean

Posted: Dec. 14, 2012 | 5:17 p.m.

The Pleistocene predators are starting to pile up in the fossil-rich hills at the northern edge of the valley.

Less than a month after a California team found evidence of a saber-tooth cat in the Upper Las Vegas Wash, UNLV researchers announced the discovery of a 1½-inch long foot bone from what they believe was a dire wolf that stalked the valley between 12,000 and 15,000 years ago.

It marks the first time the extinct species of wolf has been found in the 22,650-acre swath of desert proposed for designation as Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument.

Josh Bonde, a visiting assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, made the discovery. He was surveying a 160-acre plot of state land near Floyd Lamb Park this summer when he spotted the tip of the bone sticking out of a hill. The piece that was showing was no bigger than a quarter, he said, “just enough to identify it as a dog.”

After carefully unearthing and processing the fossil, Bonde took it to the lab of zooarchaeology and anthropology professor Levent Atici, who maintains what is known as a comparative collection of animal bones.

“He started going through his dog drawer, and he said, ‘Man, this is a great big dog,’ ” Bonde said.

Enter longtime UNLV geology professor Steve Rowland, who is collaborating with Bonde on a study of local ice age fossils. Rowland sent a photograph of the bone to Xiaoming Wang, curator of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and one of the world’s leading experts on ancient carnivores, especially canines. Wang identified it as a bone from the foot of an extinct wolf.

Rowland and Bonde are convinced it belonged to a dire wolf, but there is a small chance it could be from a gray or even a timber wolf.

Rowland is headed to California for a field trip with students next week. He plans to bring the bone with him so he can compare it with the thousands of dire wolf fossils in the collection at the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles.

This isn’t the first big find for Bonde, who specializes in much older mysteries. The geologist and paleontologist previously discovered roughly 100 million-year-old dinosaur fossils in Valley of Fire and the mountains of central Nevada.

The dire was one of the largest wolves to have ever lived, weighing about 150 pounds with thicker, shorter legs and a wider mouth than its modern equivalent.

Bonde said there is debate about how the animals behaved. Some believe they hunted their own prey; others portray them as scavengers, the ice age version of hyenas.

But like their present-day cousins, they were probably social animals. “These were packs of big old wolves,” Bonde said.

As for the name, Rowland said, “it means a bad thing is about to happen if you see one of these. A ferocious wolf – that’s what it implies.”

The approximate age of Bonde’s speciman is not known. Rowland said the bone is so small that they couldn’t sacrifice any of it to get a radiocarbon date from it. They hope to pin down how old it is by testing snail shells, charcoal and other “datable material” found nearby.

Bonde and company have returned to the site in search of more wolf fossils. None has turned up so far, but they have found camel bones and other items of interest. “It’s been a pretty fruitful little area,” he said.

The adjacent federal land is loaded with old bones as well. Working under a contract with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, a team from California’s San Bernardino County Museum has pulled thousands of ice age fossils from the area, including the unprecedented recent discovery of bones from a saber-tooth cat.

Before the cat and the wolf fossils were found, no predators had been positively identified in the Upper Las Vegas Wash since the jawbone of a North American lion was found there in the early 1960s.

Researchers long suspected that more meateaters must have lived here because of all the meat that was available back then, but finding predators in the fossil record is rare.

Asked what other fossils might be hiding in the wash, Bonde said, “If I’m going to get greedy, I guess I’d like to find a cheetah.”

Since the researchers began surveying the pocket of state land in the Las Vegas Wash in 2010, they have turned up ice age bones of mammoths, camels, bisons, birds, rodents and reptiles.

The fossils they collect are processed in a lab at the Las Vegas Natural History Museum on Las Vegas Boulevard just south of Washington Avenue. Bonde said he and his team are there most weekends, covered in dirt and hunched over their latest finds. Visitors to the museum are welcome to watch them – even ask questions – while they work, he said. “People can come in and enjoy the fossils from their own backyard.”

Bonde expects his team to be working out in his corner of the Upper Las Vegas Wash “for the foreseeable future.”

They can’t stop now, he said.

“Every time we’re out there we find another site.”

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Save Swedish wolves, petition

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This video from the USA is called PBS Nature 2007, In the Valley of the Wolves.

From AVAAZ.org:

Save the Swedish wolves!

Why this is important

Against all scientific research reports on the topic, including the Swedish government’s own investigation earlier this year, the Swedish Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning has proposed that the Swedish wolf population be reduced to 180 individuals, a decimation of the wolf population with about 40 per cent. A decimating license hunt might commence this winter.

Does behind the screens lobbying by the pro-wolf hunting Swedish royal family have anything to do with this?

In theory, Sweden is a constitutional monarchy, not an absolute monarchy like, eg, Bahrain. In theory, ministers and then MPs decide, not royals. However, is practice always the same as theory?

This decision is in violation with the government’s own agenda to improve the genetic status of the wolf population, as well as with the Habitat Directive’s rules on favourable conservation status. WWF Sweden, the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation and the Swedish Carnivore Association all agree that a decimation of the population would “seriously endanger the population, in particular in a long-term perspective, due to higher vulnerability to diseases, poaching, traffic accidents, nativity variation and other random events”.

The decision was kept secret from the aforementioned organisations, as well as the Swedish Wolf Committee, until the public announcement was made by Swedish Environment Minister Lena Ek. We now want her to reconsider and heed the scientific reports on the future well-being of the Swedish (and by extension Scandinavian and Russian) wolf population.

Sign the petition to demand that Lena Ek act now, then forward this email to everyone. When we reach 50,000 signatures, Avaaz will deliver our call to her in Stockholm.

SIGN THIS PETITION

As concerned citizens, we call upon you to review and reconsider the decision to decimate the Swedish wolf population by 40 per cent. The proposal is not founded on sound scientific ground and The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency itself proposed a minimum of 380 wolves in Sweden as recently as the 19th October 2012. The govenment’s own investigation in April 2012 proposed an increase of the population to 450 individuals. We urge you to act now!

You can sign here.

November 2012. The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service is requesting assistance with an investigation involving the suspected illegal take of a third radio-collared red wolf that was recently found dead. The wolf was found with a suspected gunshot wound on November 2, 2012, north of Creswell, N.C., near the Washington and Tyrrell county line: here.

8 December 2012. USA: Yellowstone National Park’s best-known wolf, beloved by many tourists and valued by scientists who tracked its movements, was shot and killed on Thursday outside the park’s boundaries, Wyoming wildlife officials reported: here.

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Ethiopian wolves in danger

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This video is called The Ethiopian Wolf.

From Wildlife Extra:

Ethiopia’s last wolves threatened by lack of genetic diversity as populations become isolated

Genetic structure and patterns of gene flow among populations of the endangered Ethiopian wolf

October 2102. Populations of endangered mammals are often small, fragmented and have low genetic variability that can reduce the ability to evolve in response to environmental changes.

6 small & isolated populations

The endangered Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis) is a habitat specialist restricted to six small, isolated pockets of Afroalpine habitat, with a total population of fewer than 500 adult animals. The degradation of the Ethiopian highlands because of human expansion is ever increasing, potentially leading to further population fragmentation and local extinctions.

In order to assist Ethiopian wolf conservation management, researchers from ZSL quantified the genetic diversity, population structure and patterns of gene flow of the species and other analyses that revealed geographic a population structure delimited by three mountain ranges, in concert with a previous study based on mitochondrial DNA.

Further analysis showed that current gene flow is low, unidirectional and limited to geographically proximate populations. Given the small census size and strong population structuring with low gene flow, demographic stochasticity (population fluctuations due to random demographic events) is likely to be the highest threat to the long-term persistence of this species.

Habitat protection is vital

The protection of the remaining suitable habitat, especially narrow ridges linking habitat patches within mountain blocks, is therefore essential. The genetic survey presented by this study provides vital and much needed information for the future effective management of Ethiopian wolf populations.

Ethiopian wolf history

The Ethiopian wolf, Canis simensis, is a medium-sized canid highly adapted to life in Afroalpine ecosystems above altitudes of 3000 m, where it preys almost exclusively on high altitude rodents. This highly specialized canid diverged from its wolf-like ancestor about 100,000 years ago, at the peak of the last glaciation, when Afroalpine habitat reached its maximum expansion allowing the wolves to colonize the Ethiopian highlands.

It is likely that the Ethiopian wolf exhibited its largest range and most continuous distribution during this period. Numbers began to decline with the onset of the present interglacial, 18,000 years ago, as Afroalpine habitats started to disappear from lower altitudes replaced by montane forests. Suitable habitat became increasingly fragmented, forcing the wolves to retreat into the remaining mountain refugia.

These persistent threats indicate that in the future it might be necessary to manage Ethiopian wolf populations by artificially increasing population size and genetic diversity.

Restoring gene flow could reinforce population size, decrease inbreeding, possibly induce heterosis (Opposite of inbreeding), decrease the extent of random genetic drift because of small population size in population fragments and increase genetic variability and adaptive potential.

Population management

Attempts to restore gene flow when the isolation is the result of a natural process can be controversial. This is particularly relevant for species like the Ethiopian wolf with a current population structure shaped by postglacial climatic changes. Management of populations to restore gene flow could have detrimental effects if local adaptation is strong, by importing ill-adapted alleles(gene groups) and diluting adapted gene pools.

Therefore, the construction of a balanced in situ management programme that maintains historic levels of variation within and gene flow among Ethiopian wolf populations requires identifying population boundaries and investigating patterns of gene flow among these populations. Its recent speciation and relatively simple life history, makes the Ethiopian wolf an ideal system to evaluate the power of genetic-marker-based inferences and the suitability of these inferences for species with more uncertain evolutionary histories.

Research

This research was undertaken by Dada Gotelli of the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, London, UK, and others from The Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Zoology Department, University of Oxford, Tubney, UK, and Nature Heritage, Berlin, Germany.

Click here to read the full research paper.

Workshop ushers in new collaboration for conservation in the ‘Eastern Afromontane Hotspot’: here.

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African wolf discovery in Morocco

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This video is about wolves.

From Wildlife Extra:

African wolf found in Morocco for the first time

Camera trap photos from the Middle Atlas reveal a wolf

September 2012. A group of Spanish-Moroccan researchers has announced the discovery of the African Wolf (Canis lupus lupaster) in the Middle Atlas Mountains of Morocco. The team leader, Vicente Urios, from the University of Alicante says it is “a fabulous find”. The wolves were photographed by camera trap in 2011.

The researchers discovered from the Berbers that inhabit that they knew of two types of “jackals”, one large and one small. Vicente Urios’s team guessed that the largest would actually be a wolf. “They even have a word for wolf, but they always thought the animals were jackals” says Urios.

The photographs show an animal with “obvious wolf characteristics, such as a large body, slender, with a powerful neck, tall individuals with darker mantle and short tail.” The photo is taken in the Atlas at about 1,800 metres.

Much larger distribution than previously thought

This discovery extends the known distribution area of the African Wolf (Canis lupus lupaster) westwards by more than 3000 Km to north-west Africa.

African wolf also in north-eastern Algeria and Senegal

An article published in PLoS ONE by Gaubert et al. on 10 August 2012 shed more light on the African Wolf Canis lupus lupaster in North and West Africa and put forward its uniqueness among other wolf lineages:

The African wolf appeared as a distinct genetic entity. Genetic distances with the other wolf lineages ranged between 1.9 and 4.3%, whereas they reached 4.5 to 9.3% between the African wolf and the different lineages of jackals. The uniqueness of the African wolf was reinforced by the fact that it had the highest level of haplotype and nucleotide diversity among gray wolf lineages, even exceeding that of the Holarctic wolves and dogs, and far greater than what was found for the Himalayan and Indian wolves.

It is most likely that C. l. lupaster has been roaming in Africa since (at least) the Middle to Late Pleistocene, and that the African wolf and a cline of smaller morphotypes, traditionally defined as ‘golden jackals’, have been co-occurring in Africa since that period, without any clear morphological, temporal or ecological delineation (Geraads 2011).

The full report of this discovery will be published in the September issue of the Quercus magazine: “Detectanal lobo en Marruecos gracias al uso del foto-trampeo” by Vicente Urios, Carlos Ramírez, Miguel Gallardo and Hamid Rguibi Idrissi.

September 2012. “Don’t let our wolves become homeless” is a campaign to raise money to buy the 17-hectare site on which the Iberian Wolf Recovery Centre (IWRC) has stood for the last 25 years: here.

Mange and viral diseases have a substantial, recurring impact on the health and size of reintroduced wolf packs living in Yellowstone National Park, according to ecologists: here.

September 2012. The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service is requesting assistance with an investigation involving the suspected illegal take of a radio-collared red wolf that was recently found dead. The red wolf is protected under The Endangered Species Act: here.