There was a loud rustling in the brush, so Brian Christman raised his muzzleloader for the deer he hoped would come out. It was the end of the season in central New York, and Mr. Christman was hoping to bring home some money.
Instead, he saw what appeared to be a large, white dog staring at him. Suddenly felt Mr. Christman like a victim. He was wearing a perfume that smelled like a doe in the heat. He lined up the animal in his scope and pulled the trigger.
“I thought it was a big coyote,” recalled Mr. Christmas recently.
This is not. And the shooting will open a new, uncertain front in the wars with what may be America’s most beloved and despised predator. Genetic analysis and other tests revealed that the 85-pound animal killed in December 2021 was actually a gray wolf that had eaten a wild diet. By all indications, this was not an escaped captive.
A group of ardent conservationists in the region have long said the animals are finding their way from Canada or the Great Lakes to the forests of the upper Northeast. For them, the wolf shooting near Cooperstown is evidence that government agencies need to do more to find and protect the animals.
But when it comes to protecting wolves, apex predators that were nearly exterminated by American settlers and their descendants more than a century ago, controversy is never far away.
From afar, people often like the idea of a charismatic species like wolves returning to a landscape, said Dan Rosenblatt, who oversees endangered and non-game species at New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation. When you talk about them in someone’s backyard or where they like to hike, he said, “the level of support tends to drop off pretty quickly.”
There have been two other confirmed wolves in New York in the past 25 years, according to the state. One of them, killed by a hunter in 2001, was probably wild. But establishing whether any large spotted canines are actually wolves is complicated by the large coyotes in the region. According to scientists, their size is the result of historical, and possibly ongoing, interspecies hanky-panky.
Wolves, coyotes and dogs can all interbreed and produce fertile offspring. Northeastern coyotes have significant amounts of wolf DNA — often about 20 percent, the researchers found. This heritage gave rise to the name “coywolves,” although many scientists dislike the term on the grounds that it implies a distinct species or something like a 50-50 hybrid.
Instead, “it’s a hot mess,” said Bridgett vonHoldt, a professor and geneticist at Princeton University who studies dogs, including Great Lakes gray wolves, eastern Canadian wolves, coyotes and dog “A lot of genetics is shared between all these dogs, and that creates a lot of confusion for the public and challenges for management.”
Legally, the species matters: In New York, wolves are protected under state and federal law. Coyotes may be killed without limitation from October to March.
Forest Detectives
Joseph Butera, a retired telephone mechanic with a home in the Adirondacks, climbed a hill in the woods, cupped his hands over his mouth, closed his eyes and howled. The response he was hoping to get from any nearby wolves didn’t come, but he remained cheerful. said Mr. Butera is certain that wolves are back in the Adirondacks and is determined to prove it.
His love for animals is not for isolated species. “Ecosystems don’t function well without predators,” he said. In his view, wolves are what is needed to restore health and balance to the forest.
So Mr. Butera joins a growing number of wolf enthusiasts from the Northeast and beyond to raise awareness and collect evidence. One of the coalition’s main goals: To prevent returning wolves from being shot as coyotes.
It was a collaborator from Maine, John Glowa, who learned of the photos from the shooting of Mr. Christman on social media. He told Mr. Butera, who called Mr. Christman and asked for tissue samples. The body is already at the taxidermist, so Mr. Butera.
“The man gave me a lung and a tongue,” said Mr. Butera. “And the rest is history.”
One sample, analyzed at Trent University in Ontario, came back 98 percent wolf. Another, sent to Dr. vonHoldt at Princeton, returned 99 percent.
New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation also took a sample, which it sent to a university that used, recognized by the state, a less sophisticated method. That analysis concluded that the animal was 65 percent wolf with a coyote mother, and ruled the animal a coyote. The state eventually threw out those results and declared the animal a wolf, likely from a Midwestern pack around the Great Lakes.
For Mr. Butera’s coalition, an important victory followed: New York state added language to its coyote hunting page warning that wolves are protected and asking hunters to “please use be careful in identifying any large canids you encounter.” A separate page gives instructions on how to separate the species. Coyotes, for example, have sharper snouts and longer ears.
Then, last month, a bill passed the New York legislature that would ban many hunting competitions that award prizes to the person who kills the most animals, or the heaviest. One such annual contest awards $2,000 for the heaviest coyote. Gov. examines Kathy Hochul is the law, according to Katy Zielinski, a spokeswoman.
Proponents identified 12 wolves south of St. Lawrence Rivera natural barrier for packs in Canada, since 1993.
“I think it’s very possible — that’s probably the best word, possible — that there are other individuals in the Northeast,” said John Vucetich, a professor at Michigan Technological University who has studied the behavior of wild wolves for decades.
Wolf advocates aren’t waiting for the state to find the animals. Mr. Butera, on foot, carries test tubes filled with alcohol and checks the soil for scat.
“Whoa, look how big it is!” he said on a recent afternoon, looking at a fresh sample on a trail in Franklin County. He measured and photographed the large (and, to any dog owner, must have looked like a dog) before using disposable chopsticks to remove a piece and insert it into a plastic tube for genetic testing. “It is very impressive,” he said, convinced that it was made by a wolf, because of its size and content. “This is the lottery winner.”
A Temporary Rebound
Before Europeans arrived, wolves traveled coast to coast in what is now the United States. Driven near extinction in the early 1900s, they have been reclaiming territory in recent decades. While humans are behind the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone National Park, other gains have been led by the animals themselves. A remnant population in Minnesota has spread to neighboring states and continues to grow. Recently, wolves have established a breeding population in Northern California.
As their numbers increase, so does the controversy over how to manage them. During the Trump administration, federal wildlife officials removed them from the Endangered Species list; a judge later overturned that decision, restoring the protections.
Both said Dr. Vucetich of Michigan Technological University and Dr. Rosenblatt of New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation said that, while occasional individual wolves may make it to the Northeastern United States, packs do not. They say that would leave enough evidence, like the moose killings, unsolved.
Advocates accuse the state agency of turning a blind eye to wolf conservation because the animals are considered politically dangerous.
“Right now the state is operating in a factual vacuum as far as wolves are concerned,” said Christopher Amato, who spent several years as an assistant commissioner of natural resources at the Department of Environmental Conservation and now directs conservation at Protect the Adirondacks. a nonprofit group. “No effort was made to find out what was going on outside.”
But said Dr. Rosenblatt said it was a matter of prioritizing the species known to be present in the state.
“We have many other environmental management issues that are more pressing in front of us now that we have to deal with,” said Dr. Rosenblatt, which lists 70 threatened or endangered species. “If time wasn’t limited, it wouldn’t be such a headache,” he said.
Dr. argued. vonHoldt at Princeton for a more holistic perspective on managing large, wild dogs. Instead of trying to separate wolves and coyotes into neat boxes, he said, officials should focus on the ecological services that both can provide — preying on overpopulated deer, for example.
Mr. Christman, the hunter who shot the New York wolf, was initially disappointed that the large animal he had brought into the backwoods was not a record-setting coyote.
Because it is an endangered species, the mountain was confiscated by the state. But like many hunters, Mr. Christman sees himself as a conservationist, and he’s glad he had a hand in uncovering the presence of a wolf in the wild land he loves.
“For the public to be aware of what’s around us and our own beautiful state is the most important part,” he said.
