Lone wolf sighted in Arizona

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Lone wolf sighted in Arizona

Post by Koa » Mon Dec 01, 2014 8:16 pm

Posting this in General Wolf Discussion rather than Wolf Conservation as this is where discussion regarding roaming wolf OR7 ("Journey") used to take place.
It will be interesting to see how far this wolf travels.
A DNA test has confirmed that a lone gray wolf is roaming Arizona, just north of the Grand Canyon, a long way from its home in the northern Rockies.

The animal, which is protected under the Endangered Species Act, is the first known gray wolf to visit Arizona in about 70 years. The species disappeared from the state in the 1940s, which makes this development exciting news for conservationists who want to see wolves spread back into their former habitats.
For the full story, please go here: http://m.livescience.com/48872-lone-gra ... anyon.html

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Re: Lone wolf sighted in Arizona

Post by orangeonfire » Thu Feb 12, 2015 8:09 pm

I just came across an update on this. :( Long story short, her journey came to an end in Utah by gunshot in late December. The hunter responsible for her death claims to have mistaken her for a coyote. Further investigation is underway.
The endangered female gray wolf seen on the north rim of the Grand Canyon in the fall of 2014 is the same animal a hunter killed in Utah later that year, a new genetic analysis reveals. The researchers compared DNA from tissue samples from the dead wolf with DNA taken from wolf scat collected near the canyon in November. The two were a match, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced today. The lone wolf (pictured) was wearing a radio collar at the time of her death, and FWS identified her as 914F. She’d been collared near Cody, Wyoming, on 8 January 2014, but by the time she reached Arizona it had stopped working, and efforts to capture her and replace it failed. Researchers don’t know the route she took to reach the Grand Canyon, but she likely traveled more than 700 kilometers on that journey—becoming the first wolf in northern Arizona since the animals were exterminated there 70 years ago. Conservationists hailed her appearance in the region as a sign that the recovery of the gray wolf is still in its early stages, with plenty of habitat as yet unoccupied. They also said she demonstrated that FWS’s ongoing attempts to remove the canines from the protection of the Endangered Species Act are premature. Yet even with those protections, wolf 914F, thought to be about 3 years old, died at the hands of humans. The man who shot her was a Utah state–authorized coyote bounty hunter. He apparently mistook the wolf for a coyote and shot her in the Tushar Mountains, about 320 kilometers north of the Grand Canyon. The investigation into her killing continues.
Source: http://news.sciencemag.org/plants-anima ... irmed-dead

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Re: Lone wolf sighted in Arizona

Post by Koa » Thu Feb 12, 2015 8:16 pm

Interesting, I didn't know that. I was wondering if she was going to be another "Journey" but I suppose not. Thanks for the update.

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Re: Lone wolf sighted in Arizona

Post by Nordue » Tue Feb 17, 2015 4:37 pm

  • That's too bad for 914-F, but it seems to happen all the time. The first article made a good point about the downside of state-by-state protection vs a blanket protection of America. Wolves are so mobile that even state boundaries are too small to be effective management barriers.

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Re: Lone wolf sighted in Arizona

Post by SilkenGalaxy » Tue Feb 17, 2015 6:07 pm

I actually briefly saw a news announcement thing that the first wolf seen in like 75 years (or something close to that) in the Grand Canyon got shot by a hunter, I was steaming mad when I read that, because that's just not right!

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