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I'm actually wondering if I saw one strollling down my street in the early morning back in the fall. On the edges of Denver, no less! It was at the very least a very very large coyote. My roommate and I tend to let our dogs out in a pack and stay close to the yard, so it's not too much of a concern, but I've been keeping my eyes peeled.
For years, biologists thought that these "coywolves" were "Eastern coyotes" because they were bigger than western coyotes, but now DNA has proven that they are hybrids. Apparently, they originated in a one of Canada's national parks in northern Ontario, and the population continues to thrive there ... and has not only spread into populated areas of southern Ontario (even into metro Toronto) but also into parts of the eastern US.
There are lots of coyotes in western New York State, even in the suburbs of Buffalo. Where I live, in the rural southwestern corner of the state, coyotes are very common. That they are sometimes found in packs suggests that maybe they get that behavior from their wolf ancestors as I think most coyotes tend to be more solitary.
There are coywolves in NYC. In fact, one was captured in Central Park. The Appalachian Trail is less than an hour from NYC, perhaps their habitat is shrinking and there is less and less food in their habitat. As the video suggested, they could easily follow the railroad lines into the city and make their way through the Bronx into Manhattan. While driving, I did see coyote/wolf like animal one night cross the road with some kind of bird in its mouth and that was less than 10 miles from NYC in northern NJ. Field Video: The Coywolf and its New York City habitat | Nature | PBS | Nature | PBS
I'm actually wondering if I saw one strollling down my street in the early morning back in the fall. On the edges of Denver, no less! It was at the very least a very very large coyote.
Not very likely. While wolves have been seen in Colorado and are repopulating the state, none as far south as Denver. These are Grey Wolves, Canis Lupus Iremodus, or C.L. Occidentalis, and they usually kill coyotes on sight, rarely socializing or mating with them.
The coydogs of the topic are crosses between the Eastern Wolf, Canis Lupus Lycaon, smaller than are their Western brothers, and eastward migrating coyotes. These hybrids can be half again as heavy as the pure strain western coyotes. They more often form packs, and when they do, can hunt and down adult deer, something pure bred coyotes rarely do. These are also the animals that in 2009 killed a young woman on Cape Breton Island.
There are coywolves in NYC. In fact, one was captured in Central Park. The Appalachian Trail is less than an hour from NYC, perhaps their habitat is shrinking and there is less and less food in their habitat. As the video suggested, they could easily follow the railroad lines into the city and make their way through the Bronx into Manhattan. While driving, I did see coyote/wolf like animal one night cross the road with some kind of bird in its mouth and that was less than 10 miles from NYC in northern NJ. Field Video: The Coywolf and its New York City habitat | Nature | PBS | Nature | PBS
I don't think their habitat is shrinking so much as their populations are growing. Not all animals need to have pristine wild habitats to thrive, and the coyote/coywolf is one. Whitetailed deer, raccoons, opossums, cotton tail rabbits, etc are others. Even wild turkeys have proven to be adaptive.
Unregulated hunting and habitat loss removed most of these species from most of states like NY before WW I. Large scale agriculture which created large fields with few hedge rows or wood lots limited most of these species. There were virtually no woods around the farm where my father lived as a boy in the 1920s-1930s. There were many more open, worked fields and pastures around our own farm in Cattaraugus County, NY, when we moved there in 1960 than there are today.
In the last sixty years, the shrinking of agricultural lands and the growth of exurban and suburban housing has increased what is called "edge habitat", which is a mix of forest and grassy meadows. These are are where many wildlife species thrive because of the variety of food sources, nesting/den sites, and cover. Where agricultural lands have been abandoned and gone back to scrub and forests, all these animals thrive, especially where exurban and suburban land use patterns clear grassy areas for houses with landscaped lots separated by forested strips. Hilly areas, in cities or suburbs where there's brush and trees, are also good habitats. As we've set aside parks for recreation and pushed housing back from flood-prone river banks, we've created more new habitat among our urban/suburban environments.
Fifty years ago, white-tailed deer were rare sights in most of Upstate NY and on LI. Now, they're virtually pests in some places, including cities. It's not that people are necessarily "encroaching" on wildlife but that some species of wildlife, like whitetails and coywolves, are simply expanding their population and ranges, and they don't discriminate against cities if the cities offer enough suitable habitat, which may include extensive parks, cemeteries, naturalized buffer areas along waterways and highways, and even abandoned industrial areas that are grown into shrubby brush.
Hadn't heard of them. Interesting. And some people think similar species can't breed.
According to the PBS program, the coyotes and wolves continue to interbreed in the Canadian national park.
Wolves, coyotes, and dogs seem to be an exception to the rule in that they will breed in the wild and that their offspring are fertile. This indicates that they are much more closely related to each other than they are to other wolf-like species such as foxes.
Horse species and cat species do not seem to interbreed in the wild, although humans have created hybrids by mixing varieties of these groups, the most common one being the mule (horse x donkey).
Last edited by Linda_d; 04-12-2014 at 11:14 PM..
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