Good news for the Rocky Mountain wolves!

Apparently the the judge on this appeal to stop shooting wolves hasruled to ban it You can read it on this site
article for those not familiar with the case.
Anne G

A wolf pack with two mothers?

All:

Now that the team is back up there, studying Ellesmere Island's wolves, the pack they're studying seems to have two nursing females. Which is rare in wolf packs, but has been known to happen, especially if the pack is large(and maybe about to split), but not unheard of. There is a "new" female who nurses at least some of the pups(they diddn't say how many there were). Then there's a "resident" female who apparently is the "alpha". Did she have some pups too, so they always have a milk bar when Mrs. Alphawolf is away? The team didn't say anything more, so all is mysterious at the moment. I look forward to hearing more. You can find it at this site. It also has some pretty neat pictures, one of which is of a wolf followng an ATV or the like. The wolf seems to be checkiing them out.

I have an idea!

Over at another site I inhabit from time to time, there was a discussion going on about mysteries, likeable characters in books, and more specifically, a subgenre of mysteries known as "cozies". These are mysteries that are more like the ones Agatha Christie used to solve, and which were popular with people of my mother's generation, and some women of mine. My sister also likes these kinds of mysteries, but I'm the oddball. When I was growing up, "cozy" type mysteries were about the only kind you could get, unless you wanted really "noirish" stuff. I never read a lot of mysteries at that time, mainly because they never seemed to go much of anywhere, and I couldn't really engage with the characters. I guess I thought most of them were just to "nicey-nice", except for the ones who turned out to be whodunnit.They were the only ones with flaws or personal problems to solve.

But I'm not here to "denounce" cozies. They are obviously a popular subgenre, and there are a lot of them around. What interested me was, that one of the people who chimed in on this discussion, hated, absolutely hated, mysteries solved by "telepathic cats" or other companion animals. I understand this person's feelings. Besides wolves, cats are my other most favorite animal, so I've tried to read a few of these, and, quite frankly, they are very, very boring!

But this gave me a (sort of) idea. What if there was some way to write a mystery where wolves solved it in some way. Of course there would have to be humans involved too, and it would have to be in some place where there enough wolves to make this a possibility. Maybe Yellowstone? Isle Royale has been done by at least one person. Then how would you get the wolves to go about solving the ,mystery? I have a kind of half-baked idea right now(talk about writer's creativity) Maybe I could get my Dauarga(Neandertals) involved? It's an interesting idea, and to many people it would sound absolutely crazy. Or maybe, to make it slightly easier, I could substitute coyotes for wolves(they pretty much the same habits and reproductive cycle as wolves, and they are very, very common around here, even residing in city parks. I don't know. What do you, gentle readers, think of this? It wouldn't be a cozy, because I don't think I could write thoseII;ve read a few cozies that I've actually liked), so anyone who reads this and likes "cozies" please don't be offended; it's just that my tastes just differ somewhat from yours. In any case, I'm going to tu4rn this around in my brain for a while and see what comes of it. The project might be interesting!

Oh, and any suggestions or opinions, pro or con, will be cheerfully accepted.
Anne G

It's true, Brutus is confirmed dead

Yes, it's true. the International Wolf Center has confirmed that poor Brutus the Wolf i s dead.  The cause was a musk ox, who was doubtless trying to defend itself.  Musk oxen are very good at this, and the picture of the hole in his side is about the size of a musk ox horn. The International Wolf Center works with one of the weather stations on Ellesmere Island, and some weather station people went out after snow stopped falling, and dug up his remains.  So farewell, Brutus the Wolf!  You lived a good wolf life, doing what nature intended you to do, just as the musk ox was doing what nature intended it to do.  I hope that there will be some way to continue reporting about the habits of these beautiful animals, living as they do in the High Arctic.
Anne G

Sad news

I've had some sad news today.  The sad news is about the apparent demise of Brutus the Wolf. I mentioned in an earlier post, that Brutus was not with his pack, way up there in Ellsemere Island, nor was his radio collar transmitting anything.  It's still not transmitting anything, so he is presumed dead, but unless the people at the local weather station can find something out, they won't know for sure until around July 4.  I guess it's very difficult to get there much before then, or at least the conditions necessary for getting around on an Arctic island are very difficult till then.  This is all very sad.

On the other hand, Brutus was apparently about 10 years old.  That's pretty old for a wolf in the wild, and it looks like he did live a nice wolf life in a tough environment.  He sured a lot of pups, some of whom are still apparently with the pack, so his genes, if nothing else, are probably living on.  And you could say, while alive, he did the job nature intended him to do, which is good enough.  Still, it's sad, especially for the researchers, to lose one of the wolves whose movements they were tracking.


Rest in peace, Brutus the Wolf,
Anne G

Sad and serious news from Ellesmere Island

Gentle readers:

I have been hoping to recount the genesis of my Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece With Neandertals long before this, but there have been many things, including life, that have interfered. I will be posting about this, soon.

But unfortunately, I have to pass this alarming news on, to those who love all living beings, including wolves. It seems that something bad has happened to the wolves on Ellesmere Island that scientists at the International Wolf Center in Ely, Minnesota have been following.

In the first place, something seems to have happened to the radio collar on Brutus, the wolf through which the scientists have been following this pack, has stopped transmitting. Sometimes, a collar malfunctions or falls off. Unfortunately, it also stops functioning when the creature wearing it dies or disappears. This is what is alarming.

There is a weather station nearby, but apparently the weather station people can't snowmobile to the last place from which information was transmitted. Weather at this time of year is even more "uncertain" than April weather around where I live. And more dangerous to snowmobile in when it is.

So we don't really know what has happened to Brutus. Except that he hasn't been seen with the pack, and that's bad news, too. If something has happened to him, the scientists will doubtless r4adiocollar another pack member, and they can follow its movements into the summer. I do hope this doesn't portend more disaster for them, though.

Anne G

p.s. I will post more info about Washington wolves, whenever I can get my hands on it.

Dawn over Ellesmere Island, with wolves

 

According to this post, dawn is finally breaking over Ellesmere Island as the big wolf pack returns to its usual haunts. It’s a beautiful sight; the island has been without daylight for something like four months.  Even Barrow, Alaska doesn’t go that long! Oh, and the wolves, one of whom is a wolf called Brutus, which they’ve been studying intensively, is prominent in the picture.  Arctic wolves are beautiful creatures.BTW, Brutus is the one with the radio collar.  He’s more in the background, but his radio collar is very obvious.

Anne G

Hungry wolves come home

It seems like the huge wolf pack that's been roaming around Axel Heiberg Island and Ellesmere Island has decided to come back to their territory on Ellesmere. Apparently they couldn't find much in the way of wolf chow on Axel Heiberg, and not much in the way of wolf chow in their territory, so they searched some more, out of their Ellesmere territory. They managed to sustain themselves, apparently, by dining on leftover muskoxen that were killed by somebody or something else. That pack seems to be pretty strong. And you can read all about it here;

http://internationalwolfcenter.blogspot.com/2010/02/theyre-back.html

Anne g

Wandering white wolves

Well, here goes.  My first blog on the subjects I mentioned yesterday is going to be -- gasp! -- wolves.  Partly because it's late at night(I got home kinda late tonight, and I'm tired and sore from exercises), and partly because some of the things I'm going to be blogging about over the next few days are going to require long blog posts. 

 

This isn't about the wolves of Washington State this time, though you can all be sure I'll be blogging about them whenever there's news about whatever is going on with those particular wolves.  This post is about a wolf pack that has been traveling around Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg Islands, which are jammed up there, very close to the North Pole.  It's still dark up there; the sun won't rise again for maybe another ten days or two weeks(and if you want to know where Ellesmere Island or Axel Heiberg Island are, Google Earth would be a good place to start).  In any case, these wolves have traveled over the ice, presumably in search of muskoxen to dine on(their principal food, apparently), from Ellesmere Island to Axel Heiberg Island, and back, and now they appear to be traveling south toward a tiny settlement called Grise Fjord, whose inhabitants are all Inuit, and probably shot most of the wolves that lived around Grise Fjord until the Canadian government, in its infinite wisdom, decided to settle some Inuit people there, back, I think, in the 1930's.  Anyway, if you go to Wolves of the High Arctic, you can track their movements.  Someone asked exactly where the URL for Wolves of the High Arctic was, and I'm basically replying to that person.

 

An unusual thing about this particular wolf pack is, it's very large for a wolf pack.  The usual size of a pack is about 7-10 wolves.  This pack has some 20-odd.  How that happened, I wouldn't know.  Maybe a lot of the territory around them is essentially wolfless, or maybe there are just a lot of muskoxen to be had for their dinners.  Or maybe something else is going on.  In any case, the site itself is very impressive, I think, and is part of a study that includes David Mech, a famous wolf specialist.  So anybody interested in wolves, or maybe just looking at some pictures of them(in those regions, they tend to be white or nearly white), it's a wonderful site, and I highly recommend it.

Anne G

A plethora of goodies on various subjects

There is an absolute plethora of bloggable subjects cluttering up various parts of my computer today, and I didn't even realize it!  I've been busy the past few days, mostly with more writing(have completed or revised two more chapters in the second book of my Great Medieval Science Fiction Trilogy With Neandertals), and haven't, lately, had much time to do any serious blogging. 

 

But never fear, there's plenty to blog about.  First, two stories from Julien Riel-Salvatore's fine blog, A Very Remote Period Indeed,  both on the presence of Neandertals in Poland north of the Carpathians, some 80,000 years ago.  Then there's an equally fascinating piece on preserving an 11th century bridge in England, with sugar, on Got Medieval.  And let us not forget My Beloved Wolves!  There are stories and updates on the Wolves of the High Arctic(in this case, Ellesmere Island -- if you don't exactly know where that is, you might want to search through Google Earth or an atlas).  Their travels are interesting.  All wolves' travels are interesting, for a variety of reasons.

 

Last but not least, I have my own thoughts about why only certain people are interested in medieval history and society, and why few readers of historical and other genres deal with "medieval" except as fantasy.  I will also have something to say about how this impacts my own history, and my writing. 

 

In any case, stay tuned.  I'll be blogging about some of this stuff, a little each day or so.  I'm not deserting anybody, though I haven't started 2010 with a huge number of blogs.  But that's another story to tell -- later.  Much later.

Anne G

More wolf news from all over!

I've just stumbled across a very interesting blog that tracks the movements of wolves on remote Ellesmere Island.  These are wolves of the high Arctic, and they are usually a bit smaller and shaggier than their mainland conspecifics, and arctic wolves, in general, are usually white or almost all white. The Ellesmere Island wolves are no exception.  They were tracking a wolf called Brutus(he was radio-collared) and it turned out he and the rest of the pack travel far and wide, even to neighboring Axel Heiberg Island, in search of muskoxen and Arctic hares, their staple diet.  It's impossible to track them at this time of year, because the sun doesn't rise there from about the middle of October till the second week or so of February.  Besides which the temperatures and other conditions would make this pretty impossible.  How the wolves manage under such circumstances, I don't know, but they have to eat, like everything else. 

 

The article is accompanied by some pictures.  The first is of the paths followed by Brutus and his pack.  These wolves apparently trotted themselves over the ice pack to Axel Heiberg Island, but they didn't stay by the shore.  They went inland in search of their meals.  The round trip took about a week and covered nearly 100 miles.  And the map also shows all the other places they traveled.  Wolves do a lot of this kind of "traveling", especially in the Arctic, where their territories need to be quite large, for obvious reasons, if you think about it.  Anyway, there's a really nice picture of one pack member(or at least I think it is a pack member; it sure isn't Brutus, because it's a mother with a pup)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy, she's obviously an Arctic wolf in the Arctic,

Anne G

Wolves are good for the environment

Farmers and ranchers may not like wolves much, and they're still trying to shoot them in Idaho and Montana(and some idiot or idiots did in a whole pack that used to roam Yellowstone National Park.  But they sure are good for the environments they exist in, whether the farmers, ranchers, and wolf haters know it or not. A recent study on Isle Royale, whose wolves are world-famous, seems to show that when wolves chow down on the local moose, they leave bits and pieces behind(not to mention wolf droppings, and such.  And these "leavings" are apparently good for the local forests; the trees and other things there are healthier when there are wolves around, chowing down on their moose dinners.

 

Furthermore, this isn't the only time I've read about things like this.  There are wolves on or near the British Columbia coast, that eat a lot of salmon, in the seasons when salmon mate and the runs are abundant.  They just wade in and catch themselves as many salmon as they can eat, which is a lot easier than chasing down the "blacktail" deer(they're a subspecies of mule deer), and eating them.  Of course, they have to compete with grizzly and "black" bears for the salmon, too, but there, the salmon runs are more abundant than here in the Puget Sound area(and a lot less full of pollution, too).  The result of all these leftover salmon carcasses?  Again, the forests where wolves leave their bits of salmon(helped by the various bears and perhaps other wild things as well) are a lot healthier than forests where there aren't any wolves.  Which suggests that, indeed, contrary to the yowls of farmers and ranchers, wolves are, indeed a Good Thing. 

 

Just an addendum here:  I believe the wolves of this part of British Columbia, are classed in the same subspecies as the two packs that wandered into Central and Eastern Washington, and settled in to raise families.  There probably aren't many migrating salmon any more, in the nearby streams, but there are plenty of mule deer.  So the wolves doubtless eat them.  And are probably, even now, starting to make the forests healthier.  Which is a good thing, because there are people in those areas whose incomes partly derive from those forests.  Even if the local farmers and ranchers don't like this, the presence of the wolves, in the long run, may be healthier for all.

Anne G

Did we love Neandertals? Did they love us?

 

Sometime late last week, a story started circulating  around various science news feeds, that went something like this:  "Neandertals had sex with humans".  The source of these headlines(and news stories with lots of speculation) was Svante Pääbo, a paleogenetics specialist at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany  He has done a lot of work on woolly mammoth genomes(he was one of the first to extract and sequence the woolly mammoth genome), and, more germane to this discussion, Neandertals.  It seems that Pääbo is kind of hinting around that he's going to publish some bombshell about Neandertal(and "modern" human) mating habits in the paleolithic era. 

 

In the meanwhile, however, several news outlets have glommed onto this story, with various, shall we say, viewpoints.  One of the (slightly) more "sober" of these -- at least it does quote Pääbo and some others at some length -- come from the Times Online, and is, I think, fairly sensible, in view of the fact that the actual scientific paper hasn't come out yet.  No doubt Svante Pääbo will speak to the press at length, when he is finished sequencing the Neandertal genome.  To be fair, his team has sequenced Neandertal mitochondrial DNA, and has come up with a bunch of differences in sequence, though the vast majority of "our" and "their" genome is identical!  And, to Pääbo's credit, what he says, in the above mentioned video, and in print, is, perhaps deliberately, inconclusive. 

 

However, this hasn't stopped some people from "getting wild".  Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist who has long studied Neandertals, seems to think that "if" they "had sex", they must have been like horses and donkeys, that classic example from Biology 101 showing that species are defined as separate(more or less), when they cannot mate and produce fertile offspring.  Or at least that's what the above-mentioned Times Online article seems to imply. It should be noted here that I have a lot of respect for Dr. Stringer.  He has worked on Neandertals for a long time, and has garnered a good deal of respect in many quarters for this work, which is careful, but which, in my opinion, may be influenced by whatever biases he has acquired over a lifetime of work.  And when it comes to Neandertals, there are plenty of biases at work, and always have been, practically from the minute of the first "official" discovery back in 1856.  Just to remind everybody, this was three years before Charles Darwin announced his theory of evolution.  People then had no idea what human evolution might have been like, and Neandertals were fortunate or unfortunate, to be the first "nonmodern" human type ever discovered.  About all I can say to Dr. Stringer is, I would love to show him around various bodies of water in the Seattle area, give him a bird identification field guide, and then ask him what kind of gull he sees walking around the shores of Green Lake or Lake Washington, or the Ballard Locks, or. . . .  What he might not realize is, the gull population around here is a "hybrid" one:  they are a mixture of "Western" gulls(Larus occidentalis) and "Glaucous winged" gulls(Larus glaucescens).  The Puget Sound area is the southern end of the "glaucous winged" gull range, and "Western" gulls have been flying, and settling, north for some time.  They meet here.  And mate.  And produce apparently fertile offspring.  The gulls obviously don't care about such minor details as what species they are supposed to belong to.  Their only criterion for being a suitable mate is (a) is the potential mate of the opposite sex and (b) do they have pink feet?   Both "glaucous winged" and "Western" gulls have pink feet.  To complicate things even further, in western Alaska, "glaucous winged" gulls mate with "herring" gulls(Larus argentatus), and yes, they, too, produce fertile offspring.  And they both have pink feet.  I can imagine the gull gene pool .  It kind of boggles the mind.  The reason this is possible is, that these gull populations were separated in various places during the last glacial advance, and because of the separations, these gull populations all diverged, genetically speaking -- somewhat.  But not enough, apparently, to create anything like a reproductive barrier.  Among "generalistic" species, and gulls are pretty darn generalistic, if you've ever seen one in action(they'll eat just about anything), this is not as  uncommon an occurrence as one might think.  And so, the gulls around here are called "Puget Sound hybrids", because they may look like "glaucous winged" or "Western" gulls, but they have cheerfully been exchanging genes for an apparently not inconsiderable time.  After all, there are no glaciers to impede their attempts to mate, at least not at the moment.  Besides, evolution is a decidedly messy and complicated business.  That includes the human variety.

 

But if Dr. Stringer still wasn't convinced that such things are possible, I would love to see the expression on his face when, on my theoretical journey, we stopped off at Isle Royale, Michigan.  As many people are aware, Isle Royale National Park is world-famous, and its wolves have been studied intensively and extensively for some 50 years now.  Except there's one thing about them:  These wolves aren't entirely wolf.  They have mitochondrial DNA sequences characteristic of coyote populations.  And there certainly are coyote populations nearby, though not on Isle Royale itself.  But then, the "wolves" of Isle Royale trotted themselves across Lake Superior and onto Isle Royale during an especially cold winter, when that part of Lake Superior froze over,it is thought, in about 1948.  And they've been there ever since.  They came from nearby Ontario, Canada, where there are also numerous coyotes. . . .and at the time, people thought nothing of trying to shoot every wolf they could shoot.  The wolves were probably safer on Isle Royale at the time; there certainly weren't very many of them, and coyotes seem to be somewhat more adept at not getting themselves shot.  But that's another story.  I should add that, to someone just looking at them, the wolves of Isle Royale look like wolves; they're big, furry, mostly gray, and they regularly hunt moose, when the hunting is good.  They don't exactly look like coyotes, other than the general resemblance all members of the genus Canis(dogs, wolves, coyotes, jackals, "red wolves") have to one another.  But they still have these "coyote genes".

 

And if Dr. Strnger still wasn't convinced, I'd take him somewhere in New England, to pay a visit to the "coyotes" there.  The New England coyotes now appear to have some "wolf" genes -- they are somewhat larger, darker, and furrier than their western counterparts.  This is partly due to the fact that it generally gets colder in the winter in, say Massachusetts, than it does in the Puget Sound region; coyotes around here don't need to grow a lot of fur in the wintertime, though they do grow some. 

 

The thing here is, at least from what I've gleaned in my readings(and I* keep on reading this stuff as it comes out), the members of the genus Homo, which include both Neandertals and "moderns", had, long before there were any Neandertals, evolved to be "generalistic".  That is, they were, and are, capable of, and not too fussy about, eating just about anything, and adjusting t6o whatever environment they found, and find themselves in.  True, the origin of both "ancient" and "modern" humans is somewhere in Africa, but people wander, and adapt.  And, 300, 200, 04 50,000 years ago, there were small populations scattered all over the Old World.  Their numbers generally weren't very big, and in many cases, their populations tended to be local and somewhat scattered.  But they were there, and they would follow game, in cold climates and in warm ones.  They would sometimes meet each other(as Neandertals and "moderns" may have in Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East, but this has always been true for that region).  And, I suspect, some of these little groups may have exchanged genes. 

 

It's another question entirely, whether these small populations of whatever kind, were able to pass their "paleolithic" genes to later populations that began to take up farming, and because they had more "reliable" sources of food, were probably more numerous.  As it was, Neandertal populations appear to have been quite small and scattered; more so than "modern" ones, who kept coming from Africa anyway.  And later Paleolithic "modern" humans(whether or not they had any "Neandertal" genes), were smaller than later "Neolithic"(farming) ones; their genes may well have simply gotten swamped out of existence, just as (in my opinion)Neandertal genes likely were.

 

Which brings me back to Svante Pääbo and his possible "bombshell".   He is probably right that Neandertals and "modern" humans "mixed it up" on occasion when their populations met, in any number of ways and for any number of reasons.  And I'm guessing, since both Neandertals and "moderns" had evolved to be "generalistic", that, like the gulls, and coyotes x wolves, were perfectly capable of producing fertile offspring.  Whether they had much opportunity to do this is no doubt another story. And, absent a time machine, there is no way of telling if this was the case.  But I think the capability was there, if for no other reason than both groups seem to have had broadly similar strategies for accomplishing tasks like hunting or making tools or setting up dwelling places. 

 

This is difficult, nowadays, for a lot of people to believe, because most of them have been told, over and over and over again(if they pay any attention to these things) that Neandertals were fundamentally "different" in some basic way.  Well, as far as I, and a  number of other people can tell, they just weren't -- at least not in a behavioral sense. Just like wolves and coyotes, or the "hybrid gulls" of Puget Sound. And that belief, based on what evidence I've read in learned papers, gentle reader, is partly why I ended up writing a Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece With Neandertals.

Anne G

Wolf x coyote hybrids find a niche in the Northeast?

The John Hawks weblog, which I think is one of the best science blogs around,  and which I check daily, often has interesting stuff in it.  Dr. Hawks is a biological anthropologist working at the University of Wisconsin, and he has a range of biological anthropology-related interests, including, of course, the very important subject of human evolution.  He is also very interested in the subject of  gene "introgression", and he spends a good deal of time writing about it.  Genetic introgression , for those who  have never heard of this term, is basically the crossing-over of genetic material from one closely-related species to another.  Some species of organisms are well-known for interbreeding and producing perfectly fertile offspring. These species are very closely related; perhaps some of them are not "species" at all, but "subspecies", that is geographical variants of a very widespread, and adaptable larger species.  Where I live, there are two species or subspecies of gulls(though field guides always list them as two species!): "Western" gulls(Larus occidentalis) and "glaucous winged" gulls(Larus glaucescens).  They interbreed, and for all practical purposes, the gulls in the Puget Sound area are considered a hybrid group, no matter what they "look like". The thing both species(or subspecies, or whatever they are), have in common is -- pink feet!  Another complication, though it doesn't happen around here, is that "glaucous winged" gulls will also perfectly happily mate with "herring" gulls(Larus argentatus) in Western Alaska, at least.  "Herring" gulls also have pink feet.  And all these gulls are, shall we say, opportunistic generalists in their habits, and are very widespread across any number of habitats.  Which means that the "species" are known to exchange genes far and wide.  There are "glaucous winged" gulls in the Queen Charlotte Islands that have "western" gull genes, though the northern limit of "western" gull range is-- you guessed it -- Puget Sound.  And the southern limit of "glaucous winged" gull territory is Puget Sound and coastal Washington State. 

 

I go into such detail about these apparent species "mixtures" because while this idea is fairly new and controversial, at least in some circles, it appears that these sorts of "mixings'" are more common in nature, at least under certain circumstances, than a lot of people like to suppose.  And it's well-known among canid specialists(that is, people who study wolves, coyotes, jackals, etc), that all members of the genus Canis(wolves, coyotes, jackals, "red" wolves, etc). are "interfertile", that is, they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring.  And it's also well-known that some 75% of all "wolves" around the Great Lakes area, have mitochondrial DNA sequences associated with coyotes.  It appears that all the famous Isle Royale wolves, whose ups and downs have been closely monitored for some fifty years now, have "coyote genes", apparently inherited from some female coyote who mated with a male wolf in Ontario.  Some of the descendants of this pairing are the wolves who now inhabit Isle Royale.  It is also thought that these pairings are or were "one way", that is, female coyotes x male wolves. In a lot of cases, this may well be the case.  But now the John Hawks weblog has comments about a paper, and links to another paper about wolf/coyote hybridization that appear to show that many of the "coyotes" in the northeastern quadrant of the US  have "wolf" genes.  I'm not surprised at this, not at all.  Like the aforementioned gulls,both wolves and coyotes are opportunistic generalists.  Both live in a variety of environments, and there are a number of places where their environments overlap.  Coyotes are smaller in size and lighter in weight, and tend, as a rule to go after smaller prey than wolves, but otherwise, their habits are much the same: they howl, form packs, hunt together as a pack on occasion(though they do more "lone" hunting, for obvious reasons, than wolves), have the same gestation periods at the same times of year, depending on climate and latitude, dig dens and tend their young in pretty much the same way, etc., etc.  Coyotes, to the surprise of many who don't know much about the general habits of the genus Canis, not only form packs, but, at least until wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone, hunted larger prey like elk and deer there(not quite as efficiently, though; that was one reason why wolves were reintroduced).  The "coywolves" of the northeastern US and southeastern Canada hunt deer, and are apparently good at it.  At the present time, though, these canids are generally classified as coyotes.  They intermediate in size between coyotes and wolves, have somewhat darker and furrier coats than coyotes in the western US.  This is probably a partly climatic adaptation; winters in the northeastern US  and southeastern Canada can get pretty cold.  And yes, they chow down on the local deer.   Nor are they "solitary", as the Hawks blog post implies other coyotes are.  But then, as I said, wherever they are not disturbed, coyotes actually form packs, just like wolves, and defend their territories, just like wolves.  They certainly do within the Seattle City limits; people have actually observed "several" coyotes acting together, and what they are observing is most likely a pack, just like wolves. 

 

In any case, John Hawks is very interested in this, because he is very interested in genetic introgression.  One might ask exactly what a biological anthropologist is doing,getting all excited about wolves, coyotes, and other wild canids, but there's method behind his apparent madness:  things like this may well have happened in the course of human evolution.  While I am not as excited about "introgression" of genes, per se, either in other organisms or in prehistoric humans of any kind, it may well be one mechanism which has made "us" what we are as a species, today.  And I have a feeling that there were human "hybrid zones" from time to time during the course of prehistory, and yeah, Neandertals were part of this.  Like wolves that nearly got wiped out by people shooting them, Neandertals had small, scattered populations that were vulnerable in various ways, and it's quite possible that some of them, from time to time, just got absorbed in early "modern" populations.  No enough to obviously "show", but enough to have possibly made an impact on early "modern" populations.  There isn't much evidence of this at the present, except possibly indirectly, but I suspect that  with more sophisticated genetic techniques, such traces might later be found.  Because, like wolves and coyotes, Neandertals and "moderns" had very, very similar coping strategies as I suggested in the previous post  So, I really think it stands to reason that "we" have acted, in the past, not too differently from the way wolves and coyotes are acting in the northeastern Us and southern Canada, at least as far as genetic exchanges are concerned  So thanks, Dr. Hawks, for providing me an excuse for another long, complex blog post!

Anne G

An addendum to the wolf hunt story

I forgot to mention a story that suggests why this wolf hunting season may actually be a bad idea.  It may increase livestock losses, according to one study.This study was done on dingoes in Australia, but nowadays both domestic dogs and dingoes are considered to be subspecies of wolves.  In any case, if true, these studies don't bode well for the idea of "controlling" wolves in Montana, Idaho, or anywhere else.

Anne G

The latest on the "wolf hunt"

Unfortunately, Judge Molloy ruled that the wolf hunt in Idaho and Montana could continue.  The carnage is set to begin on September 15 in Montana, and the BBC has a story, with video, here.  This story suggests that farmers and ranchers worry about wolves eating their livestock, and this is understandable, but that there is a lot of opposition, even in "red" Montana, to this proposed hunt.  I should note here that I know something about Montana, since I have family living there.  But they live where there's less farming and ranching, and more "other industry" going on there.  Missoula and Bozeman, especially, have fairly high -- for Montana -- populations, and are both college towns where people from places like California have moved.  My impression, for whatever it's worth, is that most people there, oppose hunting wolves, whatever else they're for or against.  It's different in places like Great Falls and Billings; they're out on the High Plains, and that's where there is still a fair amount of farming and ranching, though that part of Montana also has less population to worry about wolves eating their livestock. 

 

Be that as it may, all is not completely lost.  I read a pdf of the judge's ruling, which essentially said that the plaintiffs(various conservation organizations), didn't have enough evidence to show that irreparable harm would be done to those wolf populations likely to be hunted.  He did, however, leave what might be called a "loophole", in that he all but suggested these organizations could question the Department of the Interior's ruling on delisting the wolves, to see if it was lawfully and properly carried out, or that the proper amount of study was done.  And he also suggested that they could very well win the next round, on those grounds.  It won't stop the hunt, but it might stop future ones, at least until people either grow a different kind of consciousness about the relationships of predators and prey in any  ecosystem.  These categories include wolves, and whatever they tend to sink their teeth into, mainly members of the deer family. 

 

Be that as it may, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  Wolves have enough problems just existing, without being shot at by angry and sometimes careless, farmers and ranchers.

Anne G

Disgusting slaughter Part 3(unfortunately)

Yes, very unfortunately.  Judge Molloy, the federal judge who, it was thought might issue an injunction against this wolf "cull"(yeah, I know, they call it a hunt), apparently wants to hear more arguments.  Defenders of Wildlife has issued another brief.  But today is September 1, and that's when this wolf "hunt" begins.  Two hopeful signs:  First, this same judge has ruled previously in favor of environmental groups re wolves(for exact details, see Ralph Maughan's Wildlife Report), and second, the hunt,at least the last I heard about it, seems to be going rather slowly, although one guy claims to have bagged a wolf.  I hope it goes slow.  Real slow.  And I hope that judged issues an injunction against it, because I hope various concerned environmental groups will be able to convince him that killing 220 wolves will result (a) in more than 220 wolf deaths and (b) eve3 from a farming and ranching POV, the hunt is really not all that necessary, because wolves don't kill that much livestock.  Finally (c) hunters, especially in Idaho, are blaming wolves for declines in elk populations.  I have a feeling that it will turn out that wolves haven't contributed all that much to decline.  Other causes are likely to be responsible.

 

We'll see,

Anne G

I'm giving the wolves a rest for a while

Okay.  Enough already.  I'm not going to blog about wolves again for a while.  At least not until at least Monday. That's when a federal judge will or won't issue an injunction against this wolf hunt.  Maybe I won't comment even then, depending on how I feel.  However, if any "lupine news" comes my way, you'll  all be sure to be informed!

Anne G

Disgusting slaughter, Part 2

Since I posted my last blog regarding the upcoming wolf hunt in Idaho and Montana, I've been getting a number of comments.  In fact, I've gotten one of the highest numbers of comments on this, that I've gotten on anything since I started this blog two years ago.  At that time, I wasn't even thinking about blogging on the subject of wolves, their ecology, and reintroduction efforts.  And my blog is still, mainly a "writing" blog, with what might be called subfields related to my books.  So mostly it will be about writing, medieval times, Neandertals, and related subjects.  But since wolves have trotted themselves back into Washington State(and in some future Great Science Fiction Masterpieces, wolves are going to play their part, whatever that is, I feel it incumbent upon me to blog about them. 

 

As I said, most of the comment I've been getting in regard to my previous blog has accused me of "not researching", getting my facts wrong, etc., etc.  I am not denying that I didn't put a lot of "facts on the ground" into my blogging efforts; however, since I often get information from other sources that prompts a blog, I linked back to the relevant blog(which anyone can see if they look at the previous post), which summarizes facts and figures here.  Unfortunately, some people who read my blog comments didn't like the way I blogged, and wrote rather vituperative comments, both in the comment section, and on Ralph Maughan's Wildlife Report(scroll through the comments section, and you will see what I mean).  I find this rather distressing, but on the other hand, I will not be intimidated by them.  Furthermore, it has always been my policy to respond to anyone who comments, at least on this blog, whether or not I agree with them.  I feel this is only fair and courteous.  The only exceptions are obvious spam, which is the only reason I've instituted comment moderation. 

 

I can understand the feelings of those who feel wolves are a threat to their livelihood.  Farmers and ranchers face a lot of economic problems, and in the Intermountain West, where this wolf hunt is supposed to take place(Idaho and Montana, there is at present, and always has been, a lot of anti-predator sentiment.  This, of course, includes wolves.  A lot of people in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, opposed the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park, though the vast majority of all people who voiced any sentiments at all on this subject, were in favor of this idea.  I know this, because I visited Yellowstone at the time, and signed an informal poll.  It turned out later, that 90% of the people who signed on to that poll, favored wolf reintroduction.  But on the other hand, there were heated "town meeting" type debates, both in Montana and Idaho, and in some cases, the "antis" tried to pack the halls.  I know this also, because when such a meeting was held in Seattle, the city thought it prudent to send a couple of police officers to the scene.  Fortunately,  the police officers had nothing much to do; the vast majority of people there(and the place was packed), again, favored wolf reintroduction

 

Still, there is a noisy group of people, such as the Governor of Idaho(no, I didn't think to link to the YouTube video at the time I saw it, unfortunately(, who are ready and eager to start shooting wolves.  I am pretty sure that most of these noisy would be wolf hunters, have farming or ranching interests of some kind, and the fact that wolves have been taken off the Endangered Species List(though they are still listed as Threatened), has only egged these people on.  One of the people on that video actually advocated pretty much shooting every last wolf, not just the 220 wolves that are "officially" being allowed to be shot.  And he also advocated aerial hunting, as is unfortunately done in Alaska, thanks to the former governor of that state.  I have been told this won't be happening in Idaho, but still. . . .

 

Which brings me back to the negative commenters.  It seems to me that these people have their "own" agendas.  That is fine.  They are welcome to disagree with me.  But some of them don't seem to be any longer on facts than they accused me of being.  So if one is going to argue a counter position on this, or anything else, I would like to see their "facts on the ground"  Someone else "slammed" me anonymously.  I am no longer going to accept "anonymous" comments; they will be treated as spam.  I don't care whether or not your "handle" is your real name or not.  But you have to have one. 

 

Finally, as I said earlier, I have no intention of being intimidated by this, nor do I have any intention of being chased of Ralph Maughan's, or anybody else's site.  I will strive to be polite and courteous at all times, to anyone who passes through here.  And, needless to say, I will continue to blog about the state of wolves in North America and elsewhere, when that seems needful.  A blog, after all, is not an article in a scientific or academic journal(and yes, in the course of my research, I've read any number of those).  It is at bottom a place to express opinions.  They should be based on "the facts", whatever they may be, but they should not necessarily be bound by them.  So expect more "lupine opinion pieces" in the future.

 

I will leave this for now,

Anne G

A disgusting slaughter is about to begin

On September !, the State of Idaho will officially sanction the killing of 255 wolves in that state, and on September 15, Montana will do the same thing(though I don't know the number of wolves they're going to try to shoot there).    As some of you who read my blog may know, I'm "into" wolves.  As some of you may also know, wolves were reintroduced to the Rocky Mountain West via Yellowstone Park, in 1995.  They had been absent from that park since the 1930's.  In the meantime, their smaller cousins, the coyotes(Canis latrans), took over some of the functions wolves had previously performed, such as dining on elk.

 

Unfortunately, elk are rather large, and coyotes are smaller than wolves, so the "coyote contribution" wasn't adequate to keep elk herds under control, and the ecology of Yellowstone and some surrounding areas changed, not always for the better.  In 1995, wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone, and they thrived.  They were also introduced to parts of Idaho.  They thrived there, too.  And the ecology of Yellowstone, at least, was partly restored.

 

The wolves thrived so well that they spread in Idaho, and moved out of Yellowstone into other parts of Wyoming.  At this time, they were still on the Endangered Species List, and therefore protected from hunting.  And they continued to thrive.   They thrived so well, that, despite protests from various conservation groups, arguing, correctly, I think, that in  most parts of the US outside Minnesota and Alaska, there were not enough wolves in the places where they have been reintroduced, to justify delisting, and therefore "unprotecting" them.  The full details can be found at Ralph Maughan's Wildlife Report, where a far more detailed proposal of this "plan" can be found.

 

Many people in Montana and Idaho oppose this wolf hunting.  For one thing, it would, if successful, wipe out nearly one-third of all the wolves that now live in these two states.  That, it seems to me, is not what is required here.  It is true a lot of farmers and ranchers approve of these proposed hunts, and they seem to be enthusiastic about wanting to join in.  This is understandable in places where people invest their money in livestock, and predators are traditionally considered worrisome.  However, wolves have to learn to dine on sheep and cows; their natural food is deer and elk, but, like all members of the dog family, will eat just about anything biodegradable if they have to.  They can be "discouraged" from eating cows and sheep in various ways; this has been tried in Minnesota with a fair degree of success.

 

Even worse, these proposed wolf hunts will probably be conducted aerially, not unlike the ones the former governor of Alaska has so enthusiastically promoted in the past.  These wolf "hunts" are unfair and disgusting, and they work by running the target wolf down, exhausting it, then shooting it dead, dead, dead.  There's no particular reason to kill them, even if ranchers and farmers worry about livestock, because "wolf damage" just isn't that great.  Ironically the deer that wolves traditionally eat, may cause a lot more damage to crops, at least; I once saw a herd of them attack some growing wheat just outside of Bozeman, Montana.  Wolf predation would go some way to solving problems like this. 

 

So what is my bottom line here?  These hunts, if you want to call them that, are unnecessary.  They will not accomplish much of anything, except, in the long run, I think, to drive wolves back onto the Endangered Species List, where they will again begin to thrive.  Furthermore, in Montana and Idaho, although there are plenty of people who welcome the idea of possibly exterminating all wolves in their states, there are plenty of people who oppose these hunts.  Even in Alaska, which is full of wolves, most people there oppose wolf hunting.  Besides which, farmers and ranchers are no longer exactly the "majority" of the population in those states.  There are a great many people from "outside", who would like to see wolves and wildlife thrive.  So I, for one, would like to see this hunt halted, hopefully by some sort of court injunction, if at all possible, and immediately.  I urge everyone to think about this, and, if possible, go to Facebook, where Defenders of Wildlife has a presence, sign their petition, and give them as much support as possible so that this effort to stop what is essentially a disgusting and unnecessary hunt, will stop.

Anne G