Editor,
I am chair of the board of directors of the Red Wolf Coalition (nonprofit advocating for the long-term survival of wild red wolves) in northeastern North Carolina, where the only population of endangered wild red wolves in the world lives in the five-country recovery region. Given the huge distances wolves travel -- GPS tracking collars have given science the ability to prove just how far, hundreds and hundreds of miles -- there is no reason a wolf could not be in Arkansas. Dispersers often live and travel alone for months, sometimes returning to their natal packs after being gone for several months.
Researchers have followed the travels of specific wolves in the Northern Rockies with the technology afforded by the GPS tracking collars. One wolf, for example, traveled from Yellowstone (her natal pack) to Colorado and back up to Wyoming, where she traversed the southern part of the state, before heading back to Colorado. Another Yellowstone wolf went all the way to Utah before returning to his family in Yellowstone. He had a serious case of wanderlust because he repeated the adventure. Wolves have gone from Minnesota to Missouri and Iowa. And those are but a few examples. And then there is the famous loner who went from Oregon to northern California, where he has been hanging out for over a year.
Many people think wolves need the pack -- which is a family unit, sometimes with multiple generations -- in order to survive. Certainly, there is strength and solidarity in numbers when it comes to getting food and in raising new pups. But some of the young wolves leave home and head out to find mates and new territories, and these solitary journeys can be epic and fraught with danger, of course.
Some of the eastern wolf/coyote hybrid animals are large and robust. People in the northeast and Mid-Atlantic often call them coywolves or brush wolves. These animals are much larger than the western coyotes. Some of the eastern coyotes here in the Virginia Appalachians are very wolf-like in appearance, and beautiful if you happen to be a fan of predators. We live on a farm and see (and hear) these canids from time to time. The myth that they decimate local deer populations is precisely that, a myth. There are twelve big does and their offspring out in one of our pastures right now.
But I digress. Thanks for your article, Randy, and don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about red wolves. Our web site is www.redwolves.com, and the Red Wolf Coalition is on Facebook.
All the best!
Neil
Cornelia N. Hutt
Round Hill, Va.
Editorial on 01/29/2014