wolves

[ClifSpliffy]

DNA test identifies wolf in Greater Capital Region
the astute reader with a working cache of my blather may recall that i often refer to the coyotes, here, as 'wolves.' when called on it, i point out that those fleabags are around 25% wolf dna in New England, and i deal with them friendly critters often enough to say,
'you ain't no coyote, you is a wolf.'
general refresher course, there may be a quiz:
tail down -coyote.
tale up - dog
tale sideways - do not offer directions to little red riding hood's hood, but do me favor, point them in the direction of all my neighbors and their dang chickens. they stink, and they're loud. the chickens, that is.

as usual, and like so much 'environmental' stuff lately, the government swore that there ain't no wolves. i guess that they don't get out much, but i'll cut them some slack as they're prolly stuck in their offices lately, studying the 'news' (to them) that there appears to be some kind of drought thing going on, and they've got to update their algorithms.
i've always found them to be quite civil, and, with soo much food kicking around where we live, they're like all the others, not looking for hassles. micky d's closed for renovations? they'll just mosey over to burger king.
of course, out west where they can mess with people's livliehood, they've earned a shotgun blast to their keysters.
yup, plenty of food around these parts, on land and in the sea. why, fishboy just told me a tale yesterday, that he saw stripers kinda floating on their backs, sunning themselves on top of the water, like they just finished a big meal. news to me.

 

[ZooCougar]

85lbs is way too big to be a New England Coyote even if they are part wolf and dog.

 

[CL82]

I fully expected the answer to this to be the same as mountain lines in Connecticut. People assert that there are no Mountain lions in Connecticut, despite the fact that mountain lines have been located in Connecticut, hit by cars in died, and been confirmed via DNA testing.

Sure enough, when I checked that is exactly the case.

 

[ZooCougar]

I fully expected the answer to this to be the same as mountain lines in Connecticut. People assert that there are no Mountain lions in Connecticut, despite the fact that mountain lines have been located in Connecticut, hit by cars in died, and been confirmed via DNA testing.

Sure enough, when I checked that is exactly the case.
View attachment 77814 View attachment 77815

I’ve done a ton of reading on Mountain Lions. Most likely what we see in CT are males looking for territory.

The biology of it is that if the young males are overcrowded, they come out of the Dakotas and Nebraska which are the closest established populations.

Males disperse in every direction looking for territory with a female in it. When unsuccessful they just keep moving further and further away until they end up in places like CT.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

more local 'wolves,' from just the other day.


they grow up to five feet in length!
the biggest coyote/wolf/whatever that i encountered first hand, was, my guess, somewhere between 75 to 90 pounds.
i wasn't inclined to ask to let me weigh him.
pro tip: last year, the day when our gov was saying 'all is well, no worries' and the mayor of nyc was too dumb to close the underground, the weather told me to take a hike around, cuz the weather was weirdorama, and i thought that i might see something different out there. i did, all kinds of critters trying to get last licks in before the deluge, including a rather large coyote/wolf/whatever, just moseying around without a care in the world, kinda half playing at hunting. he finally sees me, a few hundred feet away, yet acts so out of character mellow, that i swear i could hear him say 'ur not doing nuthin either, why don't you come over here and scratch my ears?'
i swear.
Flash floods in NYC subway as Hurricane Ida kills four & city in emergency
there is no lying by the animals, or the clouds. ever.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

another local monster, hot off the presses.
Angry Monster Tiger Muskie Caught by Connecticut Fisherman

dang. and i thought the lakes are just filled with leaches, but what would i know. i just fish the briny deep, and not the freshwater.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

more local 'wolves,' from just the other day.


they grow up to five feet in length!
the biggest coyote/wolf/whatever that i encountered first hand, was, my guess, somewhere between 75 to 90 pounds.
i wasn't inclined to ask to let me weigh him.
pro tip: last year, the day when our gov was saying 'all is well, no worries' and the mayor of nyc was too dumb to close the underground, the weather told me to take a hike around, cuz the weather was weirdorama, and i thought that i might see something different out there. i did, all kinds of critters trying to get last licks in before the deluge, including a rather large coyote/wolf/whatever, just moseying around without a care in the world, kinda half playing at hunting. he finally sees me, a few hundred feet away, yet acts so out of character mellow, that i swear i could hear him say 'ur not doing nuthin either, why don't you come over here and scratch my ears?'
i swear.
Flash floods in NYC subway as Hurricane Ida kills four & city in emergency
there is no lying by the animals, or the clouds. ever.

'there is no lying by the animals, or the clouds. ever.'
the tuesday before the wednesday deluge, we're sitting around outside at a friends home. 'what are you looking at?' i hear a few times.
'the sky. i really cannot recall a time when i saw such a messed up sky. remarkable, really. we've got cloud layers moving this way, that way, every which way. something big is up, and it's right there for all to see.'
the news was full of a storm down south, yet around here, the government and the weather people were just expecting showers, or such, when the correct response should have been 'we don't really know, since the clouds are telling us to watch out. so, officially, watch out!'
it all played out rather tragically. clouds don't lie.

 

[powerplay]

A few years ago, I'm pretty sure I had a wolf occupying the woods behind my house. I do not have confirmation but I heard the howl on a couple different occasions, to me, there's a big difference between coyote vocalizations and wolf howls. I also have pictures of a large canine paw print taken around the same time as hearing the howl. My neighbor believes he saw it, and he thought it was a wolf. Again, no confirmation and at best, circumstantial evidence.

 

[ZooCougar]

It’s amazing that all these people have seen wolves. They are fairly common in Wisconsin and Minnesota and most people will go their whole lives and never catch a glimpse of one. It’s not like in Wyoming and Montana where you can see for miles and miles.

Coyotes in CT are enormous compared to the ones I have seen in the rest of the country. CT coyotes also don’t sound like rest of the country coyotes. With the wolf and dog blood they are different. They are also so much bigger I am certain that when they cross paths with regular coyotes they will probably eat them.

There has also been a taxonomic debate on whether they should be their own species or sub species.

Why the eastern coyote should be a separate species: the ‘coywolf’

A wildlife biologist argues that the canid in eastern North America – known as the eastern coyote, or the coywolf by some – deserves to be classified as a separate species.

theconversation.com

 

[ClifSpliffy]

It’s amazing that all these people have seen wolves. They are fairly common in Wisconsin and Minnesota and most people will go their whole lives and never catch a glimpse of one. It’s not like in Wyoming and Montana where you can see for miles and miles.

Coyotes in CT are enormous compared to the ones I have seen in the rest of the country. CT coyotes also don’t sound like rest of the country coyotes. With the wolf and dog blood they are different. They are also so much bigger I am certain that when they cross paths with regular coyotes they will probably eat them.

There has also been a taxonomic debate on whether they should be their own species or sub species.

Why the eastern coyote should be a separate species: the ‘coywolf’

A wildlife biologist argues that the canid in eastern North America – known as the eastern coyote, or the coywolf by some – deserves to be classified as a separate species.

theconversation.com

long ago, i met and became friendly with Walt Landgraf, a stunningly brilliant naturalist, and aboot as patient and nice a person as any that i have ever met. we would hold an annual campout in Peoples State Forest, for city kids from New Haven, and he would open the museum, and teach the kids stuff. i would constantly pester him on two topics: if mountain lions were here (he said no, at that time), colebrook being the hotspot, and the size of our 'coyotes.'
he didn't think that my tales of regular 70 lbs+ were unreasonable, and said that up in the Adirondacks, there were 100 pounders cruising around, whatever name they were called.
After sitting idle for 50 years, the Museum was reopened in 1992 under the direction of Marilyn Aarrestad, the Peoples State Forest supervisor at that time. It was reopened under a new name, "The Stone Museum." The curator for the next 15 years was Walter Landgraf. Upon his passing in 2007, the museum was again called "The Peoples State Forest Nature Museum."
Nature Museum
after he passed away, i was told to my face, by some phoney baloney state pols, that the museum would be called 'the Walter Landgraf' something or other. never happened. sad.
Walt was the man when it came to all things flora and fauna in Connecticut.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

i asked a professional 'enviro' pal of mine, fishboy, aboot this government non-acknowledgement for the wolves thing, and he had a very real possible explanation - 'maybe it's because they have not formulated a management or response plan yet. it's not a good look for them to say that a top of the food chain predator is walking around out there, but we haven't come up with a plan for that yet.'
the best explanation that i've heard so far. fishboy does mostly field work, but has to periodically come in to give talks, powerpoints, write papers, and such to the office stiffs who really have little knowledge for on the ground reality. their skill seems to be fundraising and fundspending, but not baiting a hook, even tho they'll tell you how to do it cuz they read it in a book somewhere. kind of like those wall street geniuses who lecture on the importance and value of crapto. and they look soo serious when they open their pieholes to change feet.

 

[ZooCougar]

i asked a professional 'enviro' pal of mine, fishboy, aboot this government non-acknowledgement for the wolves thing, and he had a very real possible explanation - 'maybe it's because they have not formulated a management or response plan yet. it's not a good look for them to say that a top of the food chain predator is walking around out there, but we haven't come up with a plan for that yet.'
the best explanation that i've heard so far. fishboy does mostly field work, but has to periodically come in to give talks, powerpoints, write papers, and such to the office stiffs who really have little knowledge for on the ground reality. their skill seems to be fundraising and fundspending, but not baiting a hook, even tho they'll tell you how to do it cuz they read it in a book somewhere. kind of like those wall street geniuses who lecture on the importance and value of crapto. and they look soo serious when they open their pieholes to change feet.

Breeding populations of wolves and mountain lions showing up would a be a boon to the DEEP. It would give them more funding and probably a good chunk of federal money as well. But the likelihood of either are slim to none.