Latest Gray Wolf Stories
Wolf Testified on Behalf of Feeding America - the Nation's Largest Domestic Hunger Relief Charity in The Wake of the Recent Data That The Number of Hungry American's Has Increased 36 Percent to 49 Million WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Actor Scott Wolf testified in front of the House Ways and Means Committee today at the hearing Food Banks and Front-Line Charities: Unprecedented Demand and Unmet Need. The hearing was chaired by Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), Chairman,...
UCLA biologists, colleagues solve mystery contemplated by Charles DarwinWhen Charles Darwin visited the Falkland Islands during the voyage of the Beagle in 1835, he saw a wolf-like species, wrote about it in his diaries and correctly commented that it was being hunted in such large numbers that it would soon become extinct.Darwin was baffled by how this animal got on the islands, and it figured heavily in the formation of his ideas on evolution by natural selection.Now, UCLA biologists and...
Ever since the Falklands wolf was described by Darwin himself, the origin of this now-extinct canid found only on the Falkland Islands far off the east coast of Argentina has remained a mystery. Now, researchers reporting in the November 3rd issue of Current Biology who have compared DNA from four of the world's dozen or so known Falklands wolf museum specimens to that of living canids offer new insight into the evolutionary ancestry of these enigmatic carnivores."One of the big draws...
Moose eat plants; wolves kill moose. What difference does this classic predator-prey interaction make to biodiversity?A large and unexpected one, say wildlife biologists from Michigan Technological University. Joseph Bump, Rolf Peterson and John Vucetich report in the November 2009 issue of the journal Ecology that the carcasses of moose killed by wolves at Isle Royale National Park enrich the soil in "hot spots" of forest fertility around the kills, causing rapid microbial and...
Although most wolves in Yellowstone National Park live to be nearly six years old, their ability to kill prey peaks when they are two to three, according to a study led by Dan MacNulty and recently published online by Ecology Letters. The study will appear in the journal's December print issue.The finding challenges a long-held belief that wolves are successful predators for their entire adult lives. It now appears that like human athletes, they are only at the top of their game for about 25...
A Spanish researcher has analyzed the preferences of wolves from the north east of the Iberian Peninsula to demonstrate that, in reality, their favorite prey are roe deer, deer and wild boar, ahead of domestic ruminants (sheep, goats, cows and horses).Wolves (Canis lupus) have been pursued by humans for centuries due to their supposed "addiction" to livestock. However, the study by Isabel Barja, sole author and researcher at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid [Autonomous...
The catastrophic decline around the world of "apex" predators such as wolves, cougars, lions or sharks has led to a huge increase in smaller "mesopredators" that are causing major economic and ecological disruptions, a new study concludes.The findings, published today in the journal Bioscience, found that in North America all of the largest terrestrial predators have been in decline during the past 200 years while the ranges of 60 percent of mesopredators have expanded....
Food dropped for hikers in the Canadian Arctic changed the behavior of a wolf pack, which forced a scientist to abandon her research and leave. Catherine La Farge, a botanist at the University of Alberta, told the Edmonton Journal the wolves' behavior changed dramatically once the package dropped into their territory. Before the air drop, she said, the three wolves in the pack would occasionally pass through her camp as they went about their business, ignoring La Farge, her research...
Previous studies in the field have indicated that East Asia is where the wolf was tamed and became the dog. It was not possible to be more precise than that. But now researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm have managed to zero in on man's best friend. "For the first time in world history it is possible to provide a detailed picture of the dog, with its birthplace, point in time, and how many wolves were tamed," says Peter Savolainen, a biology researcher at...
"For the first time in history it is now possible to provide a detailed picture of the dog including birthplace, point in time and the number of wolves that were tamed," says Peter Savolainen, biology researcher at KTH.Together with Swedish colleagues and a Chinese research group he has made a number of new discoveries concerning the history of the dog. These discoveries have recently been published in the scientific journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, and establish that the...
Latest Gray Wolf Reference Libraries
The Caspian seal (Pusa caspica) is one of the smallest species in the true seal family that is native only to the Caspian Sea. It can be seen on shorelines, rocky islands, and ice blocks that occur throughout the sea. In warmer months, these seals will inhabit northern areas of this range, but in colder months, they inhabit cooler waters and the mouths of the Ural and Volga rivers. It is thought that these seals only occur in the Caspian Sea because they moved there during the Quaternary...
The muskox (Ovibos moschatus), also known as the musk ox, is native to the Arctic areas of Canada, United Sates, and Greenland. Populations have been introduced into Norway, Sweden, and Siberia, but these are small. There was a population in Antarctica, but it was wiped out due to hunting and climate change, which caused its habitat to decline. Despite this, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service introduced a new population onto Nunivak Island in Antarctica, as a means of supported...
The Czechoslovakian Wolfdog originated as an experiment in 1955 in the former Czech Republic. The breed was created by breeding a German Shepherd with a Carpathian Wolf, in attempts to create a "wolfdog" which blended the qualities of a dog and a wolf. The breed looks the part. The build of the Czechoslovakian Wolfdog, as well as its hair are wolf-like. The color of its coat is gray, with either a yellow or silver tint and a light mask. Its hair is straight and thick. The breed stands over...
The Southern-East Asian Wolf (Canis lupus pallipes), also known as the Turkish or Iranian Wolf, is a subspecies of Gray Wolf which ranges from Northern Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iran. Israel seems to be the last hope for the Southern-East Asian Wolf's survival in the Middle East because it is the only country in the region where they have legal protection. There are between 150-250 wolves all over northern and central Israel. The biggest dangers to the wolves in...
The Mexican Gray Wolf (Canis lupus baileyi), is the rarest, most genetically distinct subspecies of the Gray Wolf in North America. Until recent times, the Mexican Gray Wolf ranged the Sonora and Chihuahua Deserts from central Mexico to western Texas, southern New Mexico, and central Arizona. By the turn of the 20th century, reduction of natural prey like deer and elk caused many wolves to begin attacking domestic livestock, which led to intensive efforts by government agencies and...
