Latest news with #wolves
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Three more wolf packs confirmed in California as ranchers call for relief
It was bright and early and Axel Hunnicutt was howling. He was looking for wolves. Sometimes they howl back, providing a sense of their location. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife this week reported there were three new wolf packs in the state's far north. Hunnicutt, gray wolf coordinator for the agency, was trying to track down one of them — the freshly minted Ashpan pack that consists of at least two wolves roaming eastern Shasta County. There's also the Ishi pack in eastern Tehama County and the Tunnison pack in central Lassen County. Some experts say there could now be more than 70 wolves living in California. 'I don't want to boast, but I think my howl is pretty good,' Hunnicutt said by phone while heading to the town of Burney, north of Lassen Volcanic National Park. He was taking a break from a day of searching that began at 5 a.m. in an effort to add to the limited information state wildlife officials know about the packs. The goal is to capture and outfit one of the wolves with a GPS collar. That would allow them to share information about the animal's whereabouts with owners of livestock that could become a meal for the apex predators. And it would make it easier to track them down again and collar more wolves if necessary. The trio of new packs brings the state total to 10, marking a continued resurgence for the canids protected under state and federal endangered species laws. There were seven packs by the end of last year and just one at this time five years ago. All of the latest packs were confirmed by what Hunnicutt described as "persistence" — documenting at least two wolves together at least four times in an area over six months. At least three wolves comprise the Ishi pack; it's not clear if one is the offspring of the other two. It's welcome news for conservationists, who want to see the state's native animals thrive. Many ranchers, however, see the rise of wolves as a threat to their livelihood. Read more: A dozen wolves collared in California as officials seek to track the growing population California's wolves were killed off by humans about a century ago, and they only began to recolonize the state about 14 years ago. In recent years, the population has started to take off. There were about 50 by the end of last year, wildlife officials said. The population fluctuates throughout the year as pups are born and die off, and it's likely higher at the moment. As the number of wolves increases, so does the number of cattle they attack. Between January and March of this year, 26 instances of livestock depredation were being investigated with wolves confirmed as the culprit in 16 of them, according to state data. Kirk Wilbur, vice president of government affairs for the California Cattlemen's Assn., a trade association representing ranchers and beef producers, said wolves in at least two of the new packs are known to have preyed on livestock. "There's been a real emotional impact, a real fear impact, in the north state," Wilbur said. "Folks who perhaps have never had a wolf depredation on their herd are nevertheless fearful of the possibility, and the folks who have suffered repeat depredations from wolves, this gets really stressful and taxing and depressing for those producers." This month, Shasta County joined four other Northern California counties in declaring states of emergency due to wolves. The county's Board of Supervisors also penned a letter to the state wildlife department calling for "immediate assistance and regulatory changes to better equip counties to address this growing concern," according to a news release. The state has taken steps to address ranchers' concerns. About two weeks ago, the state wildlife department announced the release of an online map that shows the approximate location of GPS-collard wolves. Anyone can check it out, but it's geared toward cluing in ranchers in an effort to prevent wolf-livestock conflict. California wildlife officials plan to complete a status review of the wolf population and are exploring the possibility of allowing harsher methods to haze the animals, including firing nonlethal ammunition at them. The state agency also offers reimbursement to ranchers for livestock killed by wolves. At one point, the state also provided money to cover nonlethal tools and indirect losses, but Hunnicutt said the program no longer has enough funding to do so. Wilbur said the new packs underscore a long-held belief by his group that gray wolves don't need to be on California's endangered species list, where they were added in 2014. Some ranchers want to be able to shoot the broad-muzzled canids, something their protected status precludes. Read more: Two new wolf packs confirmed in California amid population boom Hunnicutt said it's not so cut and dried. 'With wolves, if allowed the protections that they have, they do really well, and they recover quickly,' he said. 'On the flip side, it would not take very much to completely topple these 10 packs.' He pointed out that the hundreds of thousands — and potentially millions — of wolves were eradicated from the Western U.S. within decades. Roughly 50 animals is generally not considered a "viable population," according to Hunnicutt. If the population reaches about 150, he said protections could probably be relaxed. Amaroq Weiss, senior wolf advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group, sees the wolves' growth rate as typical. She said the state's 2016 wolf conservation plan identified about 23,000 square miles of suitable wolf habitat just in the region north of Interstate 80. The same plan estimated that that area could support roughly 370 to 500 wolves. Weiss said misunderstanding and misinformation is fueling backlash against the animals. 'Decades of research shows that conflicts between livestock, wolves and people are rare and preventable,' she said in a statement. 'These magnificent animals have immense value because they help keep nature wild and healthy, and that ultimately benefits humans as well.' Back in Shasta County, Hunnicutt was hot on the trail of the Ashpan pack. He picked up tracks, which led him to a fresh poop. He scooped it up. 'It's like, ah! I'm gonna figure out who it is,' he said. He believes the two wolves in the pack might be denning; it's currently the season. That means they bred and the female gave birth in a den, which could be a hollowed-out log or other safe haven. When wolves are denning, they're anchored to one spot — the den — upping the chances of finding them. It essentially entails trying to locate one square mile of activity in a 1,000-square-mile search area, Hunnicutt said. 'It's hard, but I love it,' he said. After lunch in Burney, he'd go back to scouting. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Globe and Mail
3 days ago
- Politics
- Globe and Mail
Wolves have made a comeback in Europe. Can these animals do the same in North America?
Adam Weymouth's latest book is Lone Wolf: Walking the Line Between Civilization and Wildness. In December, 2021, a hunter shot a large, dog-like animal that he took to be a coyote, about 250 kilometres south of the Canadian border in upstate New York. Yet after three separate, conflicting lab analyses, it was determined that the animal had in fact been a wolf. It wasn't the first to be killed in this way. Wolves have been absent from south of the St. Lawrence River, in both Canada and New England, for more than a century, pushed to extinction there as they were across much of the globe. But since 1993 more than 10 wolves have been killed in these regions, while the unreported number is likely far higher. Lab work has shown some of these to have been captive in origin, but others appear to be wild wolves. Wolves are capable of travelling greater distances than any other terrestrial mammal on the planet. A certain portion, both female and male, are hard-wired to disperse and seek out new territories, and these dead wolves are well within the range of current populations. Canada maintains the second largest population of gray wolves (Canis lupus) in the world, but wolves found south of the St. Lawrence also include the eastern wolf (Canis sp. cf. lycaon), which remains one of the most endangered wolves on the planet. The Canadian government considers the eastern wolf a distinct species, a little smaller than the gray wolf and with distinct genetic markers. It is found only in southeast Ontario, including within the Algonquin Park, and in southern Quebec, with an estimated population of between 350 and 1,000 adults. Wolves make a comeback, and face a political backlash, in Colorado's ranching country At the time of the 2021 shooting, wolves were not protected in the United States. Donald Trump's first administration removed Endangered Species Protection from wolves across most of the country the year before, though this was restored in 2022 and remains in place (for now). In Canada, the wolf is classed as a game species, only fully protected within national parks, although the eastern wolf is listed as 'threatened.' In both countries, it is more or less open season on coyotes. It is not easy to tell a large coyote and a small wolf apart, even, apparently, in the lab, and especially through the crosshairs of a gun. That wolves and coyotes are known to hybridize makes the distinction even more contested. But if wolves who make these forays into new territory are consistently being hunted, it is difficult to see how they might one day regain their former range. I have seen firsthand how vital protection is for these pioneers. While researching my new book, Lone Wolf, I walked for several months in the footsteps of a wolf who had crossed the mountains of Central Europe a decade before. Known as Slavc (pronounced 'Sh-lough-ts'), he was born in southern Slovenia in 2010, and the following summer was fitted with a GPS-tracking collar by Hubert Potočnik of the University of Ljubljana, as part of a project researching wolf behaviour. Dr. Potočnik had no idea, of course, what Slavc would go on to do, but at the end of that year he left his pack behind and embarked on a journey of more than 1,500 kilometres. He crossed Slovenia, then the Austrian Alps, and came in the spring to Italy, to the foothills north of Verona. A good portion of young wolves will leave their natal pack and embark on these great journeys, but what made Slavc's journey exceptional was not only its distance but the legacy he would leave. There had been no wolves in these mountains for more than a century, but it was here that he bumped into a female wolf on a walkabout of her own. They may have been the only two wild wolves in thousands of square kilometres of mountains, but in ways that are hard for us to understand, they had somehow found each other. Swiftly and inevitably, the female was christened Juliet by the local press, after one half of Verona's most famous couple. But Juliet's choice of name was also apposite because this was a union as significant as that of the Montagues and Capulets. Juliet was a member of the Italian subspecies Canis lupus italicus, a descendant of the wolves that had clung on in the Apennines during the centuries of the purges. For his part, Slavc came from the Dinaric population that spanned former Yugoslavia and reached down as far as Greece. Conservationists eager to see plan to save rare eastern wolf found in Quebec and Ontario Their meeting was a bridging of dynasties – not just genetically significant, but a symbolic watershed in the wolf's return to Europe. To defy centuries of persecution, to find one another in the sheer immensity of the Alps, to repopulate the lands that they were banished from – for even the most rational of scientists, it is hard not to see this as a love story. A decade on, there are at least 17 packs back in these mountains, many of them Slavc and Juliet's own descendants. There is something remarkable happening in Europe. The wolf was once the most widespread terrestrial land mammal on the planet, spanning the Northern Hemisphere from the tundra to the tropic's edge, but by the mid-20th century it had been all but eradicated from Europe, as it had from much of its former range. Yet this was not to be their final act. Their numbers have rebounded in recent decades, thanks to continent-wide protection afforded by the European Union. There are now upward of 21,500, an increase of 1.800 per cent since 1965, and they are living in every European country but for the islands, listed as species of least concern. Nowhere in Europe have they been reintroduced, they have done this entirely on their own. Wolves are an inherently conservative species, alert to any alteration in their environment, and recognized by both biologists and hunters as one of the hardest animals to trap. Yet they are driven too, by this urge to set out, and this, too, their survival is predicated on. Popular culture has the lone wolf as a Clint Eastwood archetype: fearless, self-sufficient and misanthropic. In reality, a lone wolf has left behind its family and is searching for the same three things we all are: enough food to eat, enough land to make a life, and a mate. A lone wolf does not intend to remain as a lone wolf; it has simply not yet found what it is looking for. They embody what the great migrators on this planet have always known, both people and animals alike: that movement is an existential necessity. That in times of crisis, nothing can be contained. That in times of need, we move. Such a vision does not sit comfortably within our current politics. As I crossed Europe I saw that rise in nationalism first hand: a hardening of borders, and a scapegoating both of the wolf and the migrant in these rural hinterlands. When we are talking about the wolf, I came to see that we are never only talking about the wolf. Time and again on my journey across the Alps I found the provenance of the returning wolves called into question. I heard rumours that scientists were smuggling them in, and somehow getting rich off it, or that there are farms in Bulgaria and Romania where wolves are bred for export, the implication being that homegrown wolves might be acceptable, but that these are migrants, refugees. U.S. scientists genetically engineer wolves to resemble the extinct dire wolf The wolf's return was not emblematic of an ever-changing world that refused to be contained, but indicative of malevolent intent. 'Look at its face,' someone would say, getting up a video on their phone. 'Look at its behaviour. That's not a true Austrian wolf.' Genetic analysis and academic research might claim otherwise, but at a time when scientific truth has also been politicized, objective truth does not always get the final say. I often felt on that journey that vexed questions around genetic purity and species' origins fed into political framings that encompassed far more than wolves. Wolves are more than capable of recolonizing both Maritime Canada and the northeastern United States. They have, after all, returned to countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark, some of the most densely populated, intensively farmed nations on the planet. Yet had the legislation not been in place to safeguard them, their already risky dispersals there may have been suicidal. The wolf's return is testament to the desire of life to thrive – but we also need attitudes and policies that transcend borders to enable it to flourish.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
New wolf activity map released as ranchers report Memorial Day weekend livestock attacks
DENVER (KDVR) — A new wolf activity map from Colorado Parks and Wildlife shows how far the state's reintroduced wolves are ranging—while ranchers say the Memorial Day weekend brought another wave of attacks on livestock in Pitkin County. CPW confirms multiple new depredations are under investigation, though no final determinations have been made. Still, members of the cattle industry say the damage—and the breakdown in trust—is already done. ⬇️ 'We're still behind the ball on all this, and quite frankly it was just a matter of time that this was going to happen at this point,' said Tim Ritschard, president of the Middle Park Stockgrowers Association. According to Ritschard, the latest incidents include several injured animals and at least two calves killed in what he described as a bold, midday attack inside a calving field. 'Some of this happened in the middle of the day… and so that's like they got used to humans… and that's not— to me that's not natural.' Multiple calves dead, injured by wolves over Memorial Day: Colorado Cattlemen's Association Ritschard believes the culprits are likely members of the Copper Creek pack, which was relocated to Pitkin County in January. That same pack was previously removed following costly attacks in Middle Park. 'We highly recommended to CPW that they not release that pack again because they were known depredators, and now we are dealing with this.' 'CPW came out and decided they needed to remove the pack—that's when they went in, removed the female, the male, and then four of the five pups… And obviously in January, they released them again.' A CPW spokesperson said the agency is actively investigating, but declined to comment until findings are complete. Meanwhile, ranchers say the pace of the reintroduction program is outpacing protections on the ground—like range rider programs meant to mitigate risk. Free on Your TV • New FOX31+ App for Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV 'It takes time to learn this country. It takes time to understand this. And so those people just started, they might not know anything, and from what I've been told, the one range rider that was down there was in an area with no cattle.' The Rocky Mountain Wolf Project, a key group backing the reintroduction plan, says the system is working—and called the reintroduction effort a 'success.' They warn calls for lethal removal are premature and say more information is needed about what mitigation strategies were used in Pitkin County. The group points to a statewide compensation fund for ranchers, and ongoing use of non-lethal tools like hazing, as key parts of the coexistence effort. CPW's May wolf activity map shows the collared wolves continue to range broadly, and some ranchers fear that nowhere is safe from conflict. 'They should know what happened last year and obviously they didn't learn from their mistakes. But you know—we're dealing with the same thing again, just in a different area. You took a problem wolf from one area and put it in another area.' The Colorado Cattlemen's Association says early promises made during the reintroduction process were broken—and communication with the ranching community is suffering. As for whether CPW would consider pausing or scaling back the reintroduction effort, a spokesperson told FOX31 the agency remains committed to continuing the program—and minimizing its impact on ranchers. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CBC
6 days ago
- General
- CBC
The wolf teaches us to be humble and to protect the balance of nature, elder says
Social Sharing For Ojibway and Mohawk elder Hazel Dixon, humility is about valuing everyone's role in the community — like a wolf does. "Some may be hunters, others might be protectors, others may be nurturers," she told Unreserved. "A wolf that has hunted food will take it back to the den to eat with the pack before it takes the first bite of food. So none is better than the other." In the Ojibway Seven Grandfather Teachings, the wolf represents humility. Dixon says the teaching encourages us not to gloat or brag, as well as to respect the balance of nature where every individual and species has a role to play. She points to Yellowstone National Park in the U.S. as an example of when that balance is disrupted. By the late 1920s, grey wolves which were native to the area had been eradicated from the park, as they were considered a threat to other wildlife like elk and deer. As a result, out of control elk and deer populations stripped the land of vegetation. The wolf's reintroduction in 1995 caused a cascade of regeneration, with the return of plant life, trees and many species of animals to the park. "That goes to show us that when the balance of nature is changed, everything else is affected," Dixon said. "It doesn't matter what it is." Lessons from sea wolves William Housty says wolves also protect the natural balance in Heiltsuk territory, on the coast of British Columbia. Housty is the director of the Integrated Resource Management Department for the Heiltsuk Nation. He frequently encounters the local coastal wolves, a unique subspecies also known as sea wolves. Smaller and sleeker than other wolves, they hunt for seals and fish as well as deer and mountain goats, and have a knack for swimming. "The outer coast of our territory is made up of a large archipelago of islands," Housty said. "They're utilizing that skill to be able to hop from island to island." "It's amazing to see. It almost looks like a human doing a backstroke." Housty is part of efforts to study the sea wolves in non-invasive ways, in accordance with his nation's values. The community and western researchers have partnered together to collect fur and scat samples, and record audio and video to help them identify individual wolves. This gives them a better picture of the wolves' habits and genetic makeup. These findings then inform their approach to co-existing with the wolves. While studying them, Housty has been struck by parallels between Heiltsuk knowledge and western scientific findings. The Heiltsuk see sea wolves as protectors and warriors. Housty says their role in the ecosystem is similar to their cultural one. Like the wolves of Yellowstone National Park, sea wolves regulate populations and create space for a diversity of species. "If you go to some of our outer islands, there's not a piece of vegetation from six feet and under because the deer eats it all. And so as the wolves sort of regulate the deer population, it's maintaining that biodiversity of plants and trees and all sorts of things, all throughout the different landscapes," he explained. "Achieving that balance is kind of protecting them and looking out for that overall health of the ecosystems." Seeing Heiltsuk knowledge echoed by western science reaffirms for Housty how insightful his ancestors were. "They knew this thousands of years ago and we're just sort of putting our finger on it now." "They left us with this knowledge. So now that's taught me that I need to turn around and leave that for my own children, my own community, my own people." Housty believes more collaborations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous science, and more conservation that centres Indigenous world views, can lead to a better world for animals and humans alike. "All we want is for the world to realize that if we have the love, care and respect for these animals, and take care of them, and take care of their habitat and the world around them, it's going to make for a better world for us too, and that we're all a part of the same loop." Endangered relatives To Rahnàwakęw Donnie McDowell the wolf's role as a protector who looks out for every member of the community is mirrored in the Tuscarora Wolf Clan, one of seven Tuscarora kinship groups. "If you look at a wolf pack, they take care of each other," said McDowell, a member of the Tuscarora Nation of North Carolina. "They lead; they're strong." "Wolf Clan is one of those family units that adopts and takes care of others who come in that may not have a clan family." Along with shared traits, McDowell says his people and wolves have parallel histories. Colonial policies targeted both the Tuscarora and the red wolf population they hold sacred to clear their lands for settlers. "We see that the population of the red wolves, as they decline, the Tuscarora nation's population declines." The red wolf is one of North America's most critically endangered species. Only 16 remain in the wild. In 2006 the population had reached a peak of 130 wolves. McDowell is part of the Save the Red Wolves campaign, a partnership between several non-profit organizations and the Tuscarora Nation of North Carolina — but its future remains unclear. The campaign pushed for wildlife crossings to be built across highways to ensure safe passages for the wolves and other wildlife. Highway traffic is a large threat to the remaining red wolves. The campaign was awarded a federal grant of $25 million US in December to go towards constructing wildlife crossings. Since then the Trump administration's sweeping pause on federal funding has left the future of the project uncertain. McDowell refuses to give up hope. "We can't give up hope because in the red wolves we see a reflection of the Tuscarora ourselves," he said. "Everybody has a responsibility to do this and take part in it, because there is a benefit that will come generations down the road, that our people and the community and the environment and the wildlife can benefit from."
Time of India
24-05-2025
- Science
- Time of India
Has the Dire Wolf really returned? Colossal scientist finally tells the truth
Image credits: Instagram/ It seems filters are not just limited to social media anymore. They can be created in organisms in real life to make them resemble a more beautiful yet extinct version of them. Colossal Biosciences, an American biotechnology and genetic engineering company announced on April 7, 2025, the birth of "dire wolf" pups which went extinct over 10,000 years ago. The company explicitly announced the "rebirth of the once extinct dire wolf" a species that was mostly unknown, unheard of and unseen by humans, thus getting them excited about the possibility of seeing an animal from the past alive in the present. But has the dire wolf really returned? Read on to find out what the chief scientist at Colossal has to say. Who are Dire wolves? Dire Wolf, scientifically known as Aenocyon dirus are canines that existed during the Pleistocene Epoch, around 2.6 million to 11700 years ago. According to the species was spread throughout North America and parts of western South America. Its skeletal remains have been found in Florida, the Mississippi River valley, Valley of Mexico, Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela. These wolves that had gone extinct thousands of years ago were said to have been made 'de-extinct' by Colossal who announced the birth of three dire wolf pups named Romulus, Remulus and Khaleesi. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Buy Brass Idols - Handmade Brass Statues for Home & Gifting Luxeartisanship Buy Now Undo When the company announced the same, it was believed by people across the globe that a new success had been achieved in biotechnology and humans had once again been able to achieve a task that was thought to be impossible. However, there were many researchers who stated that the claim made by Colossal of reviving an extinct species was false and that they were just genetically modified gray wolves. Now, Colossal's chief science officer, Beth Shapiro has finally revealed the true identity of these pups. Has the Dire Wolf truly returned? Image credits: Instagram/kitharringtonig In a new interview with New Scientist, Shapiro confirmed that the "dire wolves" created by the company are indeed just gray wolves with 20 modified genes. "It's not possible to bring something back that is identical to a species that used to be alive. Our animals are grey wolves with 20 edits that are cloned," said Shapiro. "And we've said that from the very beginning. Colloquially, they're calling them dire wolves and that makes people angry," she added. "In our press release, we stated we made 20 gene edits to grey wolf cells," a spokesperson for the company said to Live Sciences. "Grey wolves are the closest living relative to the dire wolves, as we showed in our paper. With those edits, we have brought back the dire wolf…" "We have also said that species are ultimately a human construct and that other scientists have a right to disagree and call them whatever they want to call them. Khaleesi, Romulus and Remus are the first dire wolves to walk the Earth in 12,000 years. They are doing amazingly well and are a testament to what we can achieve as we continue on our goal of bringing back the dodo, thylacine, and woolly mammoth, among other species. " The contention between Colossal and other scientists lies in different definitions of a species. Shapiro previously shared that Colossal is using the "morphological species concept" which defines a species on the basis of its morphology or appearance. However, most scientists follow the "biological species concept" which defines a species on their capability of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. How did Colossal create the new "dire wolf"? In order to create the new dire wolves, Colossal scientists found fossils of the real dire wolves, their teeth and skulls that had been buried for 13,000 to 72,000 years. These bones still had tiny fragments of DNA that they used to build the creatures. Next, they required a closest living relative of the dire wolves to use as a template. This is where the gray wolves entered the situation as their closest living cousins. They compared the DNA of both to figure out the differences which revealed that the dire wolves were larger, had a more massive skull, smaller brain and larger teeth than the modern day gray wolves. Then, the scientists embarked on the process of gene editing through the tool CRISPR which essentially helped them change certain parts of the gray wolf's DNA and insert in the place, aspects of the dire wolf DNA. In total, they made about 20 edits across 14 genes. This means that out of the 20,000 genes they just changed 14 to make the wolves morphologically look like dire wolves but the rest of them are still gray wolves. To produce the dire wolves, they took an empty egg cell from a big dog, removed its own DNA and inserted the edited gray wolf DNA. This egg was planted into a surrogate large domestic dog who carried them and gave them birth. Thus, while Colossal's dire wolves are truly a master of science and technology and have become a symbol of achieving the unimaginable, they are not really dire wolves but just modified gray wolves.
