Iberian Wolves at Port Lympne 27/11/09

Its my belief that the America 'Red Wolf' is just the southerly version of the ordinary wolf. Same as these in Europe.

You´re right with the best times for to see them, I was with a friend of mine,that is biologist and he is studying the vocal communication of the wolves, and he knew the best places for to find wolf packs.The best zone for to watch wolves in Spain it's NW.

I was pleasantly surprised to find this subspecies of wolf when I visited Port Lympne in October. Unfortunately, I only saw one and it was sleeping with its head covered in some dense brush, so I could not get a photo. I would not even have found that one if other visitors had not pointed it out.

As for our american red wolf, that is a bit confusing from what little I have read (but I have NOT studied this extensively). It is listed as a separate species, but some people theorize it is actually the result of natural crossbreeding between the common gray wolf and coyotes. They say this happened, perhaps, when gray wolves were hunted to near extinction in the area and coyotes were the only mates left for the few remaining female wolves. Haven't read anything lately, but it is an intriguing theory to say the least.

A quick followup to iberian wolf for our British friends. As a coincidence, a couple days after my Port Lympne visit, I went to the Natural History Museum in London to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. The overall winner of this year's competition is a shot of an iberian wolf! A very stunning remote camera setup with high-speed flash showing the wolf in mid-air jumping over a sheep gate. Anyone who can get to London before the close of this exhibit needs to see it - not just the wolf photo, but the entire exhibition is absolutely stunning. All large-format backlit transparency prints in a darkened gallery: truly breathtaking.

yes i saw that wonderful photograph of the iberian wolf leaping over a wall , truly amazing

I am very envious. I have seen photos of a tourist wolfwatching trip to Spain. The habitat looks like open scrubland to me. The watchers successfully saw wolves on about two days out of seven.

I've read similar theories. The predominant one seems to be that the Red Wolf is a genuine 'wolf', perhaps even a seperate species. When it became very rare it then started hybridising more and more with Coyotes creating a largely hybrid population with very few pure Red wolves left. Now with selective management they have managed to promote the resurgence of the non-hybrid animals.

My own theory is that the Red Wolf represents a very Southerly race of the US gray wolf, in the same way the Spanish wolf differs from the more northerly European wolves. The Northern wolves on both continents look very similar, and so too does the appearance of the Red Wolf and the Spanish wolf, leading me to make that suggestion.

A further bizarre twist to this story - the photographer of the Iberian Wolf shot has been disqualified because he failed to declare using a captive/trained wolf for the shot (though he denies it was trained).

BBC News - Jumping wolf photographer loses wildlife prize

I can't find my sources on this, I'll post some when I can. But here is a little more information to muddy the waters in the whole red wolf taxonomy thing.

Wolves living in Quebec have been found to be genetically quite similar to red wolves. They are phenotypically similar as well. Some argue that these animals represent a northern subspecies of red wolf. The red wolf's range historically has been very easternly (not necessarily predominately southern, since they never ranged west of east Texas). One line of thinking is that the red wolf evolved in North America, while the gray wolf obviously evolved in Eurasia and entered North America via the Beringian land bridge.

Maguari, our resident taxonomy junky, do you have anything on this?

I did find this...
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4444/is_4_18/ai_n28871872/?tag=content;col1

I have to say this is something I've not looked into before, so I'm just enjoying the discussion!

I'm at work at the mo but will certainly take a look at that article later on.