What animals would you exchange?

What kind of consensus do you want? It's pretty evident that they exist. I've seen several this year.

 

You've seen an animal that is at best a hybrid species. It is Canis Lupus, or Canis Lycaon, Canis Latrans, Canis Rufus or a mixture of the four? Is it a subspecies or its own species? The likely truth based on genetics is that all Coyote east of the Mississippi, Canadian Timber Wolf, and Red Wolf are really all one species - Canis Lycaon and are a Least Concern species at best.

 

State your source. I've actually read most of the literature on the subject.

 

The IUCN red list even states hybridization is a threat and its 5 years out of date with the latest genetic information. If the species or even subspecies in question only has 5 percent unique DNA from either the Gray Wolf or the Coyote then is it even a species?

Conservation politics and resistance to change is the only thing keeping the consensus from changing. They don't want to admit the 100 or so individuals at Alligator River are a time bomb and a waste of resources. That the precious animals they've wasted a lot of tax payer dollars on are no different from a genetic level than the average "coyote" running around the rest of the Southeast.

 

What is known is that there is 0% Gray Wolf in Red Wolf genetics. You yourself probably have 7% of your DNA from Neanderthals. Does that make you a non-pure species?

 

Neaderthal is a subspecies of homo sapien, for your analogy to work you have to be admitting the Red Wolf is a subspecies (either Canis Latrans Rufus or Canis Lupus Rufus) not its own species, when the genetic evidence likely puts it with the Eastern Wolf Canis Lycaon.

 

No one considers Neanderthal a subspecies of Homo sapiens anymore. If the Red Wolf is a subspecies, then it is a subspecies of Eastern Wolf (Canis lycaon. It may be that the Eastern wolf has a northern (lycaon) and southern subspecies (rufus), but neither are Gray Wolves.

 

There are 6 Zoos holding Brown Hyena, so it can work. About the wolves, what´s the need to change two very endangered species? They are similar, and most visitor wouldn´t even care about them.
Red Wolves should be bred in America and Iberian in the Peninsula, with re-introduction in mind.[/QUOTE]

Filipinos- Sorry, I misinterpreted what you wrote. I thought by "there's no need for us to have them", you meant you didn't want to give up some Iberian Wolves, but now I realize what you mean is that there's no point in trading them. Sorry 'bout that, but IMO Iberian Wolves are the most beautiful canids out there.
How about some Gray Foxes or Coyotes to Europe for some more Bush Dogs here in the states?

 

I would love to see more of those here in Europe, but it sounds so weird zoos changing two "plagues" for an uncommon animal in western zoos. Maybe if both were sent in exchange of the dogs...

 

I doubt the common zoo-goer would find it that impressive to see a Coyote in a zoo. They'd simply say "there's another wolf" and move on. Besides, if you Europeans are like tschlander, you all think Coyotes are just dogXwolfXCoyote hybrids and same with Red Wolves so no need bringing them into your countries.

~Thylo

 

Well the Coyote as in Canis Latrans in the Rockies is definitely its own animal. Its the "Eastern" Coyote that is very different. Canis Latrans almost never inbreeds, resembles a jackal in its build, lives in pairs, is almost no threat to livestock, and its primary prey is rabbits/small mammals. What is often called a Coyote east of the Mississippi however is a totally different animal, it hunts in packs, it is of a stockier build, they regularly take deer, can sometimes be a threat to livestock, etc.

My point which people seem to ignore is that this species has appeared fairly recently like since the 1970s. No real research has been done to define the parameters of what it is. Is it an evolved coyote, some type of hybrid, or is it something else entirely? And what is its relation to the Red Wolf. I don't believe the Red Wolf doesn't exist, I believe that it is either A) at one point it was a unique species but it is extinct now from genetic pollution or B) what we now call Eastern Coyote and what were once identified as Red Wolf are genetically the same thing and have always been. The Red coat is just a color morph made more apparent from inbreeding (in fact accounts of "Red Wolf" from the Appalachians in the 19th century often make no mention of a red pelt)

If either is correct then we are simply expending time and resources on what is best a hybrid or at worst a dead taxon walking. Either way, saying you have something rare is false when they likely share most of their genome with the average "coyote" you see in any state east of the Mississippi.

 

Really because there's a very large population of White-Tailed Deer and two large farms as well as several smaller farms in my area and I've never heard of Coyotes having encounters with any of them in the 13 years I've lived here. I've also never seen them in packs. The only time I've ever seen more than one Coyote at one moment was when me and my friends were having a camp out and making lots of noise, had a dog with us, and had lots of food and a couple of Coyotes showed up.

~Thylo

 

Like I've said I think the Red Wolf and Eastern Coyote are today hybrids but they came from remnant populations of the same species or Canis Lycaon.

 

There are not many animals out there that seem to cause as much controversy with subspecies as wolves. I've read quite a bit about the genetics of red wolves and have seen quite a bit of information that states that the wolves in eastern Canada are the same species as the red wolves. I haven't seen recent data on this. Can anyone direct me to a site that has recent research on this?

The wolf subspecies argument that gets so old in the western US is the "Canadian wolf" argument. Extremist hunting groups like to label the reintroduced subspecies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and central Idaho as being this huge Canadian subspecies that is much bigger than the ones that lived here before (even though wolves in north Idaho and western Montana established themselves before they were reintroduced into the GYE) and came from areas not far from where the founding population came from). That subspecies argument is so frustrating and there is no reasoning with most people on that matter.

Soapbox over now.

 

This to me isn't about hunting the species, its about getting it right. There are several things taken together with common sense that tell me the entire consensus of the Red Wolf is wrong.

The Consensus is that what is now the Southeastern United States was populated by a single subspecies called Canis Rufus or commonly the Red Wolf. Its was extirpated from its range to small remnant populations in Eastern North Carolina and East Texas (in swamp habitats).

My hypothesis is that what is commonly called Canis Rufus or commonly the Red Wolf is a color morph or a subspecies of Canis Lycaon which was the actual animal that inhabited the Southeast. The number one piece of evidence for this is folk memory, nothing in the stories from Indians or the more recent stories tell of the "wolves' of the Southern Appalachians being red. In fact most of the stories conclude they look like a smaller Gray wolf aka the Eastern Timber or Canis Lycaon. In fact the oldest pictures (though black and white seem to show a Timber Wolf not a Red Wolf)

My second piece of evidence is behavioral. Of all the animal reintroductions that have been attempted in the Great Smokies Mountains (Elk Mink Several Birds and "Red Wolf") only one was terminated and wasn't successful. You guessed it, "red wolves" from Texas and Louisiana were incapable of living in the uplands of the Smokies and had problems even killing deer on their own.

The third piece of evidence is genetic. Studies on remaining Red Wolves show only 5 percent of their entire DNA strand is unique. Western Coyote do not intermix with Gray Wolf out west but Eastern Coyote are known to mix with Timber Wolves. So likely Coyote that migrated East to fill niches mixed with remnants of Canis Lycaon populations to create our Eastern Coyotes.

My hypothesis is simple, we should not be wasting "spaces" at AZA institutions on an animal that is a genetic mutt at worst and a subspecies at best. We need to be investing those spaces and resources on restoring the actual Eastern Timber Wolf to the appalachian mountains. The Red Wolf is nothing more than a corrupted lazarus taxon of mixed Canis LycaonxCanis Latrans with a distinct red color morph brought about by inbreeding.

 

I'm really struggling to follow this discussion, I guess I will actual have to read some of the papers dealing with this taxon before I have any idea whether a red wolf is worth worrying about or not.

Having said that, the quote below appears to misinterpret the data presumably provided in one of these papers (a source for it would be great).

A taxon with a 5% unique genome is actually quite distinct, and almost certainly a species. Human and chimpanzee genomes are believed to differ by 5%, and no-one is going to argue that they are the same species. However, total genomic difference between two lineages is not a good indication of species differentiation, there is no "magic percentage" at which two populations are elevated to sepcies level. Some taxa may differ by less than 1% and be called species, while others could have even more then 5% difference and not be considered species.

 

I would change crows for american black vulture (Coragyps atratus) Ireland-Florida

 

That's what he did for me and now I have no questions on wolves in North America.

~Thylo