Last April a large wolf-like “canid” was found dead along I-90 east of Sturgis, SD.
Examination of its stomach contents showed it had been subsisting on deer.
Was it a wolf, a wolf hybrid, a pet wolf that had been released? After much laboratory investigation and genetic analysis, it turns out it was a wolf that had left (dispersed) from the Yellowstone ecosystem.
This is a huge distance, but the story is not just a wow!! Equally long dispersals of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Yellowstone, and wolves in Canada have been documented in recent years.
There are those who say that the wolves reintroduced to Idaho and Yellowstone (from Canada) in 1995-6 were somehow different than the essentially extinct “native” wolves, but these long-range dispersals dispel this argument. For wolves to develop into a different species or sub-species, they have to be isolated so the populations cannot mate with one another. If wolves are dispersing 400 miles now, they certainly did so for thousands of years in the past.
That is why the story is important.
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Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is President of the Western Watersheds Project.
Wolves again sited in NE Oregon. Specifically in the Wallowa Mtns. See article: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1157680504161370.xml&coll=7
Wolves are such incredible animals and have the ability to go so many miles… the wolf that ended up in South Dakota, dead, along a highway was from Yellowstone. Others will follow. May they have a better destiny.
The American west is one of the few places on earth that wolves can exist and maybe someday, Americans will embrace this fact, and welcome back wolves to even places like the Dakotas,
Great site!