Successful wolf recolonization is highly unlikely until all large wild canids have at least partial protection. A second is that the open killing season on coyotes is ecologically, as well as ethically, wrong. One is that the A2A axis likely is still facilitating occasional dispersal of wide-ranging animals, as it did for Alice the Moose 25 years ago, and needs fuller protection. Solid confirmation of a Wolf in New York has major ramifications. DEC has also informally agreed with the emerging Northeast Wolf Task Force that the state of New York must keep the wolf on the state endangered species list. DEC has since issued a caution to hunters to be careful not to mistake a wolf for a coyote, and to report any large canids shot or trapped. Initially, New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation disputed the genetic findings and denied the reality of a wolf in New York, but after considerable pressure from an emerging network of wildlife advocacy groups, including the afore-mentioned Society, Adirondack Council, The Rewilding Institute, Project Coyote, Protect the Adirondacks, Adirondack Wild, Center for Biological Diversity, and Maine Wolf Coalition, DEC conceded it was a wolf in New York. The results showed that the large canid was almost entirely Wolf, genetically as well as physiologically. The Society sent the tissue samples to a genetics lab. Thankfully, the hunter agreed to share tissue samples from the carcass. The Society realized that a canid so big would probably be a wolf, not a coyote, or at least have a strong admixture of wolf in his genes. Late last year, Northeast Ecological Recovery Society contacted a hunter who shared photos on Facebook of an 85-pound male canid that he had shot in central New York and assumed was a big coyote.

Wolves have likely dispersed back into our region from Canada multiple times. Gray wolf, photo courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service Tragically, he was killed by a speeding car on a highway in Connecticut, still looking for love in all the wild places. The great cat, later named Walker, was seen near Lake George, but kept moving, because he could not find a mate. Then in 2010, a young puma (cougar, mountain lion, panther – all the same big cat) who began life in South Dakota’s Black Hills journeyed east across Minnesota, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and southern Ontario, then he, too, probably followed (in the opposite direction of Alice) the A2A wildlife corridor into our region. Among recent publicized mammal dispersal events is a female moose, named Alice by her followers, who ventured in 1998 from central Adirondack Park northwest along the Adirondack to Algonquin (A2A) wildway and lived the remainder of her life in Ontario’s Algonquin Park. Often, wild animals themselves tell us where we most need to reconnect and protect wildlife habitats. We proposed a half million acre wilderness in western Adirondack Park, which then we called the proposed Bob Marshall Great Wilderness and now usually call the Oswegatchie Wildands Complex, which would afford ample habitat, together with the rest of the Park and connected wildlands beyond, for all wild carnivores, including all our native dogs and cats. Adirondack Council, in our 2020 Vision series, released in 1988, called for expanding and completing the Forest Preserve system in Adirondack Park and welcoming home our missing carnivores.

Conservation biology has since confirmed the great ecological importance of top carnivores, and the need of these wide-ranging animals for big interconnected core reserves. 15, 2022 Native Canines of Northern New York and New EnglandĮven before the science of conservation biology matured, the Adirondack Council bravely went on record supporting the return of wolves and cougars to Adirondack Park.

The 2022 Clean Water, Clean Air, and Green Jobs Bond Actīy John Davis - Adirondack Council Rewilding Advocate.Adirondack & Environmental Activities for Kids.Micro-Grants for Adirondack Working Lands ».

Different types of wild dogs