Have wolves moved into Maine?

A question that’s often asked of me as a wildlife biologist who lives in Maine yet studies wolves is “Do we have wolves in Maine?” I feel I can safely say that we don’t have a breeding population at the present time. Yet there are fellow Mainers who think we do.

It’s a complicated question burdened with identification issues, DNA studies and “pet” wolf escapees. Quite credible wolf-like sightings of single animals are reported regularly which always plague those of us who are working on this issue. The question we must answer is, “Is it actually a misidentified coyote, a wild wolf, or is it someone’s long-lost pet?”

I can’t help but advocate that wild animals are better off in the wild, not in our homes. Still, many people acquire wolf-dog hybrids (a domestic dog crossed with a wolf). It is illegal to own or sell a 100 percent wolf, but breeders sometimes do sell them saying that they are 99 percent wolf and 1 percent dog. Genetically speaking, wolves and domestic dogs are the same. All our dog breeds came from wolves.

I realize that some wolf-dogs make interesting companions for certain people who are willing to learn about and tolerate their special nature. But most people don’t know what they are getting into when they buy a wolf-dog. As puppies, wolves may seem cute and cuddly and even somewhat controllable. But they don’t stay puppies for long. They soon develop into very strong, and often untrainable canines. They require much more time and attention than a domestic dog. They will often bond with their “first” owner, but can’t always adapt to others.

The nature of a wolf is very different from what we have come to expect of a family pet. The “perfect” wolf-dog would be one that looks like a wolf yet acts like a well trained dog. But any honest wolf-dog breeder will tell you that you don’t know for sure what you’re going to get when you mix a wolf with a domestic dog.

People who know wolves know that the seemingly aggressive behavior sometimes exhibited by a wolf-dog hybrid should not be surprising. It may try to pin down a family member at first to play, then later to gain dominance. Establishment of hierarchy (social order) within a wild wolf pack is instinctual behavior and important for determining who will lead the pack in matters of hunting, producing offspring and so on. In a human family, when a wolf-dog reaches sexual maturity, which might not occur until it’s 2 or 3 years old, it has only the family members to do this “pack posturing” with. It’s simply trying to gain the top, or alpha position.

While dominance behavior is a very important function for wolves, it’s an unacceptable behavior for a family pet and one that we purposefully bred out of our domestic dogs. In addition, wolves naturally act wary and afraid of people. But having a family pet that acts that way toward the family’s friends often is a cause for concern.

Because wolves are very social animals within their packs, they don’t like being left alone for long. When not properly cared for, wolf-dog hybrids quickly become bored and will often resort to mass destruction if kept in the house or on a run. Most of the time when people buy wolf-dogs, they haven’t researched what’s needed for proper fencing nor how much money it will cost to safely contain the animal. Wolf-dogs have an amazing ability to climb over or dig under fences to escape to a world more interesting than the confinement of their own home. It goes without saying that wolf territories are much larger than the typical back yard.

But whether it’s the commitment needed in spending lots of time with them, or simply the animal’s wary, even sometimes scary, nature that finally catches up with many wolf-dog owners, what happens to many of these animals is that they’re turned loose in the woods or they’re allowed to escape for the 20th frustrating time. They aren’t wolves that know how to hunt. Once in the wild they exist only to eventually starve or get shot or hit by a car. A sad fate for that cute and cuddly puppy of not so long ago.

Prior to their death, however, many of these escapees are reported as wolves. Wild wolves in forested areas are hardly ever seen. Only their tracks, scat and sometimes kills indicate their presence. However, wolf-dogs turned loose are eventually seen because they’re used to people and they’re often hungry. They look so much like the wild variety that the viewer is convinced that they have seen a wild wolf.

A recent example is last year’s mysterious white canine that was spotted in and around Baxter State Park by many people on several different occasions. Even though it allowed itself to be photographed and videotaped and was taking food from people, the public demanded that it be investigated. So the Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Department, the Maine Warden Service, the Maine Wildlife Park, the Department of Agriculture, two animal shelters, the Cleo Fund, myself, and many others were involved up to our elbows with the chaos created by the release of this animal.

Once captured, results from a blood test indicated that the animal had such high antibodies for distemper that it was determined to have been vaccinated against it. And so it was more than likely someone’s pet at some point.

A bill will appear before the Maine Legislature this year which, if passed, will require wolf-dog hybrids to be tattooed. Finding a tattoo on a captured “wolf” would quickly aid in the identification of non-wild wolves or wolf-dogs should they escape or be released into the wild. And then, over time, we may be better equipped to answer the question “Do we have wolves in Maine?”

Debra Davidson is the Maine Wolf Project associate for the National Wildlife Federation.