How mistaken identity and one bullet revealed a star predator far from home
The rustling in the brush was loud, so Brian Christman raised his front loader in front of the deer he expected to emerge. It was the end of the season in central New York and Mr. Christman was hoping to bring home a penny.
Instead, he saw what appeared to be a large, white dog staring at him. Suddenly, Mr. Christman felt like the prey. He wore a scent that made him smell like a doe in heat. He placed the animal in his sights and pulled the trigger.
“I thought it was a huge coyote,” Mr. Christman recently recalled.
It wasn’t. And the shot would open a new, uncertain front in the wars over what is arguably America’s most beloved and maligned predator. Genetic analysis and other tests have shown that the 85-pound animal killed in December 2021 was actually a gray wolf that had been eating a wild diet. By all indications, it was not an escaped convict.
A cluster of passionate conservationists in the region has long argued that the animals make their way from Canada or the Great Lakes to the forests of the upper Northeast. To them, the wolf shot near Cooperstown is proof that government agencies need to do more to track down and protect the animals.
But when it comes to protecting wolves, apex predators that American settlers and their descendants nearly wiped out more than a century ago, controversy is never far away.
From a distance, people often like the idea of a charismatic species like wolves returning to a landscape, said Dan Rosenblatt, who oversees endangered and non-wild species at the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. If you talk about them in someone’s backyard or where they like to go for a walk, he said, “That level of support usually wears off pretty quickly.”
According to the state, there have been two other confirmed wolves in New York in the past 25 years. One of them, killed by a hunter in 2001, was probably wild. But determining whether large canines that are spotted are actually wolves is complicated by the region’s particularly large coyotes. According to scientists, their size is a result of historic, and possibly ongoing, interspecies hanky-panky.
Wolves, coyotes, and dogs can all interbreed and produce fertile offspring. Northeastern coyotes have a significant amount of wolf DNA — often about 20 percent, researchers have found. This heritage has led to the name “coywolves”, although many scientists dislike the term as it implies a separate species or something like a 50-50 hybrid.
Instead, “it’s a hot mess,” said Bridgett vonHoldt, a professor and geneticist at Princeton University who studies canines, including gray wolves in the Great Lakes, eastern wolves in Canada, coyotes and dogs. “There’s a lot of genetics shared between all these canines, and that creates a lot of confusion for the public and challenges for management.”
Legally, the species matters: in New York, wolves are protected by state and federal law. Coyotes can be killed indefinitely from October to March.
Forest detectives
Joseph Butera, a retired telephone technician with a home in the Adirondacks, climbed a hill in the woods, wrapped his hands around his mouth, closed his eyes, and cried. The reaction he hoped to elicit from a nearby wolf never came, but he remained cheerful. Mr. Butera says he’s sure wolves have returned to the Adirondacks and he’s determined to prove it.
His love for the animals is not for the species in itself. “Ecosystems don’t function well without predators,” he said. According to him, wolves are necessary to restore health and balance in the forest.
That’s why Mr. Butera is working with a growing number of wolf enthusiasts from the Northeast and beyond to raise awareness and gather evidence. One of the coalition’s central goals is to prevent returning wolves from being shot as coyotes.
It was a Maine employee, John Glowa, who learned of photos of Mr. Christman’s yacht on social media. He told Mr. Butera, who called Mr. Christman and asked for tissue samples. The body was already with the taxidermist, so Mr. Butera hurried over.
“The man gave me lung and tongue,” said Mr. Butera. “And the rest is history.”
One sample, analyzed at Trent University in Ontario, was 98 percent wolf. Another, sent to Dr. vonHoldt in Princeton, came back 99 percent.
The New York Department of Environmental Conservation also took a sample, which it sent to a university that the state acknowledges used a less sophisticated method. That analysis concluded that the animal was 65 percent wolf with a coyote mother, and ruled that the animal was a coyote. The state eventually rejected those results and declared the animal a wolf, most likely from a Midwestern pack around the Great Lakes.
For Mr. Butera’s coalition, a major victory followed: New York State added language to its coyote hunting page to warn that wolves are protected and to ask hunters to “please use caution when identifying any large canids you encounter.” a separate page gives instructions on how to tell the species apart. For example, coyotes have pointier muzzles and longer ears.
Then, last month, a law was passed by the New York legislature that would ban many hunting competitions that award prizes to the person who kills the most animals, or the toughest. One of those annual contests awards $2,000 for the heaviest coyote. Gov. Kathy Hochul is reviewing the legislation, according to Katy Zielinski, a spokeswoman.
Lawyers have identified 12 wolves south of the St. Lawrence Rivera natural obstacle for packs in Canada since 1993.
“I think it’s very plausible — that’s probably the best word, plausible — that there are other individuals in the Northeast,” said John Vucetich, a professor at Michigan Technological University who has studied wild wolf behavior for decades.
Wolf lawyers are not waiting for the state to look for the animals. Mr. Butera, while walking, brings test tubes filled with alcohol and scans the ground for feces.
“Whoa, look how big this is!” he said one recent afternoon, staring wide-eyed at a fresh monster on a trail in Franklin County. He measured and photographed the large (and, for any dog owner, decidedly dog-like) poop before using disposable sticks to pick up a piece and insert it into the plastic tube for genetic testing. “This is very impressive,” he said, convinced it was produced by a wolf, given its size and bulk. “This is winning the lottery.”
A cautious rebound
Before the arrival of Europeans, wolves roamed coast to coast across what is now the United States. They were hunted to extinction at the beginning of the 20th century and have reclaimed territory in recent decades. While people behind the wolf reintroduction into Yellowstone National Park, other acquisitions are led by the animals themselves. A remnant population in Minnesota spread to neighboring states and continued to grow. More recently, wolves have established a breeding population in Northern California.
As their numbers have grown, so has the controversy over how to manage them. During the Trump administration, federal conservationists removed them from the endangered species list; later a judge overturned that decisionrestore protection.
Both dr. Vucetich of Michigan Technological University as Dr. Rosenblatt of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation say that while individual wolves can occasionally find their way into the northeastern United States, there are no packs. They say those would leave ample evidence, such as moose killing, which just didn’t pan out.
Proponents accuse the state agency of turning a blind eye to wolf conservation because the animals are considered politically dangerous.
“Right now, the state is operating in a virtual vacuum when it comes to wolves,” said Christopher Amato, who spent several years as an assistant commissioner of natural resources in the Department of Environmental Conservation and who now directs conservation at Protect the Adirondacks, a non-profit organisation. group. “No effort is being made to find out what’s going on there.”
But dr. Rosenblatt said it’s a matter of prioritizing species known to be present in the state.
“We have a lot of other environmental management issues that are more pressing for us today that we’re dealing with,” said Dr. Rosenblatt, citing 70 threatened or endangered animal species. “If time wasn’t limited, it wouldn’t be a headache at all,” he said.
Dr. Princeton’s vonHoldt advocated for a more holistic view of big, feral dog management. Instead of trying to separate wolves and coyotes into neat boxes, she said, officials should focus on the ecological services that can be provided by both, such as hunting overcrowded deer.
Mr. Christman, the hunter who shot the New York wolf, was initially disappointed that the huge animal he carried out of the woods on his back was not a record-breaking coyote.
Being an endangered species, the mountain was confiscated by the state. But like many hunters, Mr. Christman sees himself as a conservationist, and he’s happy to lend a hand in revealing a wolf’s presence in the wild land he loves.
“That the public can be aware of what’s around us and in our own beautiful state is the most important part,” he said.