Wolves in WV ? (Huntington, Milton: 2013, ferry, area)

[Montana Griz]

........You wanna see what a "real-Wolf-looks-like?

Go to this web site and you'll see what has reduced our elk & deer populations by up to 70% over the last (5) years..........and yes they will and DO ATTACK humans...............This one weighed in at 179 1/2 pounds.

Go to Google and type in: Headquarters Idaho wolf attack. Then click on the 1st Listing that comes up.

Where I live here in Montana (10 miles from ID), a 161 pound male was killed last fall just 17 miles south (near Darby, MT). And just 10 miles from my place here, a local rancher had a $10,000. Champion Quarter Horse killed 2 months ago by a 160 pound wolf that killed it in the corral at night.

Our current wolf hunting season is going to be extended to the end of January because the numbers are far greater than was estimated when the F&G set the dates for this current season.

All knowledgeable and realistic sportsmen and hunters in most of Montana & Idaho are members of the .."SSS-Club".

[Altain]

I'm from Montana, and have seen wolves. You are right about them culling the elk herd in Yellowstone--rather substantially as you point out. I know, I hunted elk my whole life just outside the Park in the Paradise Valley while I lived there. On the other hand, I also remember 1988, the year of the big fires in Yellowstone, and that thousands of elk starved to death that year because the fires burned so much of their grazing land.

Man's removal of elk's natural predators caused an overpopulation of elk in the Park despite the late season hunts. This overpopulation decimated stream banks by overgrazing elk, which can still be seen whenever a thunderstorm up Lamar River turns Yellowstone River into chocolate milk. So while I emphasize with the hunters' diminishment of their elk hunting opportunity because of the wolves, I'm fine with the wolves being back in the Park. There's clearly enough elk and bison to go around, and less elk means cleaner streams for both man and nature.

As for the ranchers, I think too many of them became way too distracted by the natural wolves, when they should have been paying more attention to the manmade ones--the big meatpacking cartel that has devastated our rural communities by squeezing too many ranchers out of business. The big packers are the real dangerous predators that ranchers should have been more worried about. Unfortunately, I think it may be too late given the unprecedented market power being wielded by the packers against the cowboys.

And by the way, I often heard ranchers whining about the Federal Government failing to "manage the elk and bison herds" in Yellowstone, and doing so to the point of supporting the public relations disaster of slaughtering bison as they stepped across the line. Yet at the same time, they would whine about the wolves, which were at least one way of "managing the herds."

My only regret is that the Federal government should have just let the wolves migrate gradually back down from Canada like they did in Glacier National Park. This would have avoided all the outside special interests--the National Cattlemens Beef Council and the Farm Bureau on the one side, and the Defenders of Wildlife and the National Wildlife Federation on the other--from milking millions from their members while stoking the wolf controversy to the hilt for years, while the real ranchers weren't allowed to shoot the wolves that were indeed killing their calves. Both sides of this debate were, and are still, making way too much money off the controversy to ever want to settle it. And, surprise, surprise, it's still not settled.

As for you grandma wolf killer, I read the article you cited and think it's great tall tale. But I don't buy it. It sounds like grandma didn't like wolves too much to begin with, and got a little trigger happy. But it's her word against the wolf's. And the wolf's not around anymore to tell his side of the story now is he?
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[bcr229]

I don't think we have wolves in the eastern PH (yet), as there are just too many coyotes - I thought wolves either killed them or ran them off when they moved into a territory. We might be seeing coy-dog crosses though.

There's also at least one big cat in the area, but DNR doesn't want to admit it.

[Gotshirts]

There are smaller red wolfs in parts of West Virginia, they run 50 -80 pounds, somewhat bigger than the eastern coyote but with longer legs and more pointed ears. Populations are low and are wildlife officials know they are here regardless what information is disseminated back to the public.

[CTMountaineer]

My hunch is that it was a coyote. There are plenty of them in West Virginia and throughout the east coast.
Wolves are more to the west and far north. If there were wolves, they would drive most of the coyotes out.

[Threerun]

No wolves in WV. You have large coyotes. Coyotes here are a little smaller than eastern 'yotes.

[Dino1]

Can it be a coyote/German shepard mix?

[BellaElla]

My guess is that it was either a coyote or a wolf/dog cross.

[Phorlan]

THere's no such a thing as a large coyote. That wolf sighted in WV was probably a hybrid. Wolves and coyotes do occasionally breed together. In 1997 I saw one of those hybrids in Massachusetts, not to far from providence, RI. I was at that time completing a BS in biology and I did have a camera with me. I took a pic and a guy in the zoology department did confirm to me that was an hybrid. First, of course I thought that was a wolve.
Basically when coyote from East from the West they do, sometimes, interbreed with wolves. The two species are not that far away from each other, they still can breed. All the offsprings are sterile though and are a dead end for the species. They can't reprodudce. You know, like mules!

[cocaseco]

There are no wolves in West Virginia, or in California.