New York group joins petitioners to 'recolonize' wolves

I guess the following is one of those "What-could-they-be-thinking?" ideas that otherwise intelligent, educated people sometimes come up with. In this case, under the similarity of appearance clause in the Endangered Species Act, a group of citizens from the states of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine has petitioned the Secretaries of Interior and Commerce to regulate the commerce or taking in these four states of coyotes, wolf/coyote hybrids, eastern wolves and wolf hybrids, in order to protect what they claim are wolves attempting to "recolonize" the northeastern U.S. from Canada.

Now I'd guess that these folks unfortunately typify the misguided notions that we can just plunk down any plan that will reintroduce extirpated wildlife and it will succeed, or that total protectionism will result in increasing numbers of the species involved, and they will then make a big comeback. What they fail to grasp is that habitat and land use changes are most often the real culprits in why some species decline or disappear and others flourish.

The petitioners have stated that the timber wolf was once native to all four states, but even the scientific community is uncertain of which wolf species or subspecies originally occupied the northeast U.S. DNA analysis has shown that the Eastern Coyote is not a true coyote at all, but rather an evolving hybrid, the result of gray wolves and coyotes crossbreeding in Eastern Canada and then spreading south into the U.S. True wolves tend to avoid man and developed areas, whereas the hybrid wild canid we call the Eastern Coyote has adapted and now is quite comfortable living among us, much like the true coyote.

The petitioners want to re-establish a breeding wolf population in the Adirondack Mountains because they claim this would be a natural environment for the canids because of the "ready availability" of natural prey such as moose, beaver and white-tailed deer. The petition states that, "The availability of wolf prey and habitat is not a concern from a biological perspective." Hello? Have any of these people checked with the DEC on the "ready availability" of deer in the Adirondacks? The deer density there is the smallest in the entire state. We won't even consider the moose density, which is miniscule at best.

A decade or so ago, the Defenders of Wildlife proposed a reintroduction of wolves into the Adirondacks, but at least they listened and heeded the advice of wildlife biologists and other experts. They abandoned the plan when told the wolves would probably inbreed with the "coyotes" there, and the resulting offspring would be almost identical to the wild canids (Eastern Coyotes) that were already there. They also realized that lack of prey in the mountains would result in the canids reestablishing ranges that had more plentiful prey - which would take them well outside the Adirondacks.

I'm not anti-wolf – I consider the wolf to be a majestic creature. But placing wolves in habitat and ecosystems no longer suitable for them is not like stocking a pond with goldfish. Wolves have specific environmental needs, be it the vast undeveloped range the packs require, abundant prey species to sustain them, and, very important, limited contact with man and his manmade environments. Dropping them in the middle of unsuitable habitat and ecosystems is akin to trying to stock a Sahara oasis with Arctic char, it's destined to fail. And the victims will be the wolves, while those responsible will probably go on to another misguided cause.

This isn't the 1700s, and now Nature has provided us with a very worthy contemporary Northeast replacement for wolves, one that has evolved to have the best traits of both wolves and coyotes. But more importantly, one that can survive and is even prospering. If you can't improve on Nature, leave it alone.