DNA of Extinct Wolf Turns Up in Texas Pack
“Researchers say a pack of wild canines
found frolicking near the beaches of the Texas Gulf Coast carries a substantial
amount of red wolf genes, a surprising discovery because the animal was
declared extinct in the wild nearly 40 years ago.
The finding has led wildlife biologists
& others to develop a new understanding that the red wolf DNA is remarkably
resilient…
‘Overall, it’s incredibly rare to rediscover
animals in a region where they were thought to be extinct & it’s even more
exciting to show that a piece of an endangered genome has been preserved in the
wild,’ said Elizabeth Heppenheimer, a Princeton University biologist involved
in the research on the pack found on Galveston Island in Texas…
The genetic analysis found that the
Galveston canines appear to be a hybrid of red wolf & coyote…
Ron Sutherland, a North Carolina-based
conservation scientist with the Wildlands Network, said it’s exciting to have
found ‘this unique & fascinating medium-sized wolf’. The survival of the
red wolf genes ‘without much help from us for the last 40 years is wonderful
news,’…
The discovery coincides with similar DNA
findings in wild canines in southwestern Louisiana & bolsters the hopes of
conservationists dismayed by the dwindling number of red wolves in North
Carolina that comprised the only known pack in the wild.
The red wolf, which tops out at about 80
pounds…was once common across a vast region extending from Texas to the south,
into the Southeast & up into the Northeast. It was federally classified as
endangered in 1967 & declared extinct in the wild in 1980. The U.S. Fish
& Wildlife Service in the 1970s captured a remnant population in Texas
& Louisiana that eventually led to a successful captive breeding program.
Those canines in 1986 became part of the experimental wild population in North
Carolina…
An additional 200 red wolves live in zoos
& wildlife facilities as part of captive breeding programs…
Conservationists, meanwhile, say
policy-makers need to have a greater appreciation for hybrid animals.”
David
Warren
The
Associated Press
The
Gazette, Montreal
Jan.
14/2019
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