New study reveals Maine coyotes’ roots Modern species draws on wolf genetics

BANGOR – While attempts to reintroduce wolves to Maine continue to linger in political limbo, a new study indicates the predators are already here. As scientists have long suspected, there’s a little bit of wolf ancestry in nearly every coyote roaming the Maine woods, according to the study.

Maine’s Eastern coyotes are unusually large and more wolflike in behavior than their Western cousins. Biologists have long suspected that as coyotes moved from their native homeland in the West to colonize the East Coast, they interbred with wolves along the way. Several small studies seemed to support the theory.

Now, 100 coyote carcasses and four years of work finally offer significant scientific proof.

Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife biologist Wally Jakubas and Paul Wilson of Trent University in Ontario worked in cooperation with University of Maine student Shevenell Mullen, who has since graduated, to study coyote carcasses provided by Maine trappers.

Genetic samples showed that Eastern coyotes in Maine, New York and eastern Canada have a mixed ancestry of Western coyotes and Eastern Canadian wolves – a species that is no longer known to live in Maine, but is common in Canada.

The idea makes sense to biologists, as the Eastern Canadian wolf, the red wolf of the Southeastern United States and the coyote all evolved from a single ancestor here in North America hundreds of thousands of years ago.

The federally protected gray wolf, on the other hand, is believed to have ancestors that crossed on a land bridge from Russia 300,000 years ago, and it cannot interbreed with any of the native species.

“This is not a brand new idea,” Jakubas said this week. “It just makes the question of when you have a wolf and when you have a coyote more difficult to answer.”

For hunters and trappers, as well as those seeking to reintroduce or to encourage natural recolonization of the Maine wolf, knowing which animal is which is crucial.

“This opens a lot of cans of worms,” Jakubas said.

Despite the lessons taught by crime lab television shows, genetics aren’t always black and white, he said.

Jakubas and Wilson’s study proves that genetics aren’t necessarily reflected in what the animal looks like. Coyotes are supposed to be smaller, with little feet and shorter legs.

But the study included a 27-pound animal with 89 percent wolf genes. And several years ago, an 86-pound animal trapped in Maine was genetically identified as a coyote.

“The species may be evolving on its own. It’s getting further and further away from its [ancestry],” Jakubas said.

“You really have to consider an animal’s behavior and what it looks like, in addition to genetics, before you identify it,” he said.

The biologists took precise measurements of the coyotes’ skulls, teeth, hind feet, neck circumference, body length and height, hoping to find some characteristic that could be used to set a dividing line between wolf and coyote.

Some measurements showed promise, but none was absolute and more research is necessary before the wolf-or-coyote determination can be made with a simple measurement.

Initially, the biologists had hoped their study, which was inspired by the debate over wolf reintroduction, could also identify which types of wolves might have once lived in Maine.

Whether wolves are introduced or they migrate into Maine on their own, biologists need to know whether to treat the animal as a returning native son or a harmful, invasive species. Some argue that gray wolves – the large, federally protected kind – ought to be reintroduced from Quebec. Others say that the smaller Eastern Canadian wolf was native. And still others claim that Maine’s large coyote has adapted to play the wolf’s role.

So the biologists searched museum archives for preserved specimens of Maine’s wolves, which are believed to have disappeared from the state around the turn of the last century. Despite dozens of inquiries all throughout North America and Europe, only two wolf specimens – both genetically identified as Eastern Canadian wolves – have been found, one at Harvard and the other at a New York museum.

Perhaps someday, an attic or basement will spit out the proof that gray wolves once lived here, but Jakubas fears the answer is lost to history.

The biologists hope to publish their study in a scientific journal and may eventually answer some of the questions raised by the initial results.

For now, though, Jakubas plans to take a break from the study that led to one of the biggest wildlife controversies in recent memory. Someone knowledgeable about the study leaked information to the media, which suggested that the coyotes trapped for the study had suffered while they died. The complaint was that some of the simple, nooselike wire devices used to kill the animals slowly suffocated the coyotes.

For decades, DIF&W has paid snarers to kill coyotes in hopes of protecting deer populations. The snaring backlash that resulted from the genetic study failed to convince legislators to ban the practice. However, the coyote snaring program still was suspended this past season and its future is shaky. It remains on hold while department officials seek a federal permit absolving them of liability if an endangered or threatened species is harmed by a snare.