The Company of Wolves (31 page)

The analysis seemed to Nowak to confirm the legitimacy of the red wolf,
Canis rufus
, as a separate species. He looked also at Eurasian subspecies of gray wolves and concluded that there was evidence to support five subspecies:
Canis lupus lupus
from Europe to Russia,
Canis lupus albus
in extreme northern Eurasia,
Canis lupus pallipes
from Israel to India,
Canis lupus cubanensis
in the Caucasus, Turkey, and Iran, and
Canis lupus communis
in the Ural Mountains region. He compared the three southernmost subspecies,
pallipes, baileyi
, and
rufus
. He found that
baileyi
stood apart, “but, despite one million years in time and ten thousand miles in space,” he says, “we do have a tenuous overlap between
pallipes
and
rufus
. Here is evidence of this ancient migration of the ancestral wolf to Asia.”

Wayne also surmised that there were fewer than twenty-four subspecies of gray wolf. “It was interesting to me,” he says, “that subspecies had been defined that didn’t correspond to any geographic
boundaries. I suspected many of these subspecies didn’t express real genetic boundaries.” Genetic techniques had been used to inquire whether a subspecies is truly a separate group. DNA analyses have shown, for example, that deer mice that live near each other have similar gene sequences, but deer mice that live a long way from one another don’t. That suggests that the distant populations are no longer interbreeding and may be regarded as distinct subspecies.

Wayne performed an analysis which showed a different pattern with canids. He says, “We found thirty-two different coyote genotypes in different localities. In each of the localities there were multiple genotypes, and we found the same genotypes in different sites.” There seems to be mixing of genes of coyotes on a continental scale. With wolves, there are a few ubiquitous genotypes that are found more or less everywhere, reflecting gene flow over the continent. Wayne explains, “A wolf can disperse five hundred miles; one researcher estimates the zone of hybridization [the range in which dispersing individuals may form hybrids] is fifty times the dispersal distance, so that means wolves have a hybridization zone almost as big as the continent.”

Wayne found evidence of five genotypes in the wolves of North America and seven in the wolves of the Old World. The clusters he came up with seem to converge with the clusters Nowak has found. “We did find evidence that the Mexican wolf had a unique genotype,” says Wayne. “And we found some evidence that Alaskan wolves are different from wolves in the Northwest Territory. We didn’t sample wolves in northeastern Canada. But we’re coming close to agreement.”

Such a convergence suggests that traditional morphology and modern genetics may yet make peace. “They’ve been seen to be at odds,” Wayne says, “but the two complement each other.” And as time goes on, he expects the two approaches to change the way we view species. “Our museum collections are based around the idea of a type,” he says. “The truth is, there is immense variability, and somehow you’ve got to take into account the variability within a species.” In some cases, he expects the genetic techniques to increase the recognized number of subspecies. “Smaller species with more local distribution, like pocket gophers and deer mice, will show more variation and more differentiation. On balance for the smaller
species, molecular-genetics techniques probably will define more subspecies.

“But for highly mobile species, like wolves, the genetic information will show the high mobility has stifled any great degree of genetic variability,” because wolves share their genes over such a broad range. So genetic techniques may end up reducing the number of subspecies in wolves.

Clearly, the genetic techniques are going to change the way we define species and subspecies. This redefinition poses real challenges to the way we look at conservation. We already argue over whether it is legitimate to try to save subspecies and local populations. When we start thinking about conserving the whole genetic range of a species, the task of conservation will grow much larger. “We’re down to the point where every individual is genetically distinct,” says Rolf Peterson. “So how are we going to save the whole gene pool?”

The new knowledge will urge us to integrate the saving of genes with the saving of ecological functions. Whereas today most people view conservation in terms of saving individual animals, future conservationists will have to think about saving ecosystems, and ecosystems will have to be defined in terms of the genes that constitute them. When we consider the genetic variety necessary to maintain an ecosystem, we will face new levels of complexity and conflict in management.

And how shall we accommodate distinctions we have long made—that the buffalo wolf of the Great Plains is distinct from the timber wolf of Minnesota, or the tundra wolf of Alaska is different from the wolf of the Alaskan interior? Zoos still register their wolves by subspecies, and breeders of wolves cling to and value these distinctions. Conservationists champion local varieties as unique and irreplaceable. Those who oppose reintroductions argue that the subspecies being reintroduced never inhabited the recovery area. Revision of the systematics of wolves is bound to confute many of these distinctions, and discomfort many of those who make them. It will add to the already contentious claims we make about the identities of wolves.

“The new knowledge we gain with all this new wolf genetics is not always easy to swallow,” says Rolf Peterson. “It’s such a new tool, and a marvelous tool. I think where it will take us is outside our
frame of reference. Certainly it’s going to take us to a new way of identifying species—that’s a good thing, a new perspective—but it’s going to be hard to accommodate.”

In the future, wildness is going to be defined by the ways the environment modifies the expression of genes. And, increasingly, wolf genes—and wolf wildness—will be modified by the ways wolves interact with humans and the ways humans manage wolves. One of the first eight red wolves released came into the village of Manns Harbor and had to be recaptured in full view of the public. A woman in Hyde County complained that the wolves were killing cats, and someone saw a wolf with a cat in its mouth. Recently, some goats were killed on a farm outside Pocosin Lakes Refuge. Twenty-two of the released wolves have died—vehicles killed eight of them, one was shot and one killed in a trap—and seven were returned to captivity, some because they couldn’t seem to stay away from the villages. Such interactions with humans and their possessions suggest to the villagers around Alligator River that the wolves are less than natural, not wild enough.

Says Orville Tillett, retired enforcement officer for the North Carolina Department of Fisheries, “I see ’em once in a while. To me, they look like a German shepherd.” He thought the first wolf he saw was a dog and tried to call it to him; the wolf stood and looked at him, then drifted into the trees. “I believe they’re German shepherds,” he says, “or crossed with them.”

Part of the suspicion that the wolves aren’t wild seems to lie in the mere fact that the wolves aren’t frightening. If they were wild, many locals suspect, they’d be bigger and more aggressive. “I’ve heard two or three [locals] say they’re dangerous,” says Tillett, “but I’ve never seen one offer to attack nobody. I saw three in one day this year. They’re used to vehicles. They’ll stand in the road until you get close to them. Then they run away from you.” A white-haired lady with arthritic knuckles and a sweet smile stands in the Manns Harbor Post Office and says, “I had them in my yard. It got so I was afraid to go out at night.” But she says that, after talking to a refuge employee who told her the wolves wouldn’t hurt her, she no longer felt afraid.

Residents of the villages around the refuge believe the refuge
managers are feeding the wolves and catching them regularly to de-worm them. Says one hunter, “They trap ’em every month or so, detick ’em, give ’em shots, and feed ’em. They’re not wild as far as I’m concerned.”

At a meeting in Manns Harbor, Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge Manager Jim Johnson asked local hunters to offer suggestions for opening or closing areas of the refuge to hunting. The hunters were polite and attentive. And, although the closures have nothing to do with the reintroduction program, at the end of the meeting people started to ask about the wolves.

“Do they have to catch them up and worm them?” asked Tillett.

Johnson replied, “I’ve been hit a hundred times about ‘the way you guys are feeding them critters.’ That ain’t true.” He explained, “The critters you pick up in the wild very rarely will be carrying external parasites. That wolf may have been out there three years, and it has no heavy tick load.” He reiterated that they weren’t feeding the wild wolves.

“You ain’t feeding ’em?” Tillett asked, still unable to believe it.

Michael Phillips believes the wolves are doing just fine. By 1992, there were forty-two red wolves in the wild. Says Phillips, “The story is, we got many, many animals that have four legs and are healthy. Sixty to 70 percent of our pups are wild-born animals. Of twenty-five or twenty-six puppies born in the wild, only four have died that we know of.” Most of the animals on the Alligator River Refuge can simply be left alone. Phillips explains, “Animals that use Alligator River don’t require much work, just a little monitoring. For these animals that are well established, we fly by and get a signal, and if it’s not in mortality mode, we just keep flying by. We don’t consider putting out parasiticides every thirty or forty days by dosing a piece of meat—we’d be forever driving around and dropping meat. Some people say heartworm will ensure that the red wolf doesn’t make it. Heartworm is going to kill some wolves, but one of our most prolific pair has long been heartworm-positive and they’ve contributed three litters. The population is big enough that we’re beginning to step back. We used to routinely replace radio collars. But take animal number 331: If his radio collar goes off the air, he isn’t going anywhere. He’s five years old. He’s been here since 1989. He’s going to die here.”

There are also red wolves on Bulls Island in South Carolina, St. Vincent Island in Florida, Horn Island in Mississippi, and, since 1991, in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The island facilities were created because it was thought that wolves born in the wild would be more likely to succeed at reintroduction. In practice, that hasn’t always been so. Of four island-bred wolves released, two had to be recaptured after they raided turkey pens, and one was struck by a car. On the other hand, a male born at Graham, Washington, and released on Bulls Island cared for four pups two years in a row. Each of the females that bore these litters was killed by an alligator, and the male went on to raise the pups on his own. In 1989, Hurricane Hugo went over the island with a nineteen-foot surge of water. It tore out trees and destroyed the refuge headquarters. Refuge workers flying over the island after the storm spotted the widowed male and his four pups: they had survived.

In fact, living in the wild seems to awaken a liveliness and toughness in the wolves. Only a third to a half of the wolves manage to reproduce in captivity, but seventeen of the eighteen possible breeding opportunities in the wild produced litters. Of twenty-seven wolves born in the wild, all but two were surviving in 1993. “You gotta believe they like being out,” says Phillips. “Free-ranging wolves come into camp and you hold them in the pens and they seem to get depressed.” He tells of a female that was recaptured in 1989 after living wild for five months: “She never came outside of her box. In May, she had one puppy. The next day, there was no puppy. Her neck was rotting—we had to cut the collar from her neck, she had no hair on her neck. It wasn’t the collar that was the problem; she had done well with it in the wild. She was depressed. Finally, we let her go.”

Phillips believes the world is wild enough for wolves. “If you take a captive-reared red wolf in eastern North Carolina and you let it go in a good spot, when it is relatively young, it will do fine,” he says. And he believes there will be more and more space for wolves. With new refuge lands, and with cooperation from private landowners around the refuges, says Phillips, “We should have access to one million acres in eastern North Carolina. We ought to get a hundred wolves out there.”

• • •

The hard news about the program, however, is that, if it is successful, it will not end. Most people expect reintroduction to be a short-term effort, after which we will no longer need to manage the recovered creatures. But, says Phillips, “There is no end. We’re irresponsible if we don’t recognize there’s no end.

“We’re talking about fifty or a hundred years, hopefully forever. In fifty years, I’d guess you’ll have two to three good trappers in northeastern North Carolina, dealing with wolves that get into chicken coops and goat paddocks. They deal with spot fires. There aren’t that many ways the wolf is going to get in trouble with people. Depredating wolves won’t be killed—they’ll be put back into the captive population.” Wolves consorting with coyotes may also be replaced, and there will be wolves captured and fitted with radio collars so that the population can be monitored. There will also have to be managers for the captive breeding and release. The program calls for 320 animals in captive-breeding programs in order to maintain another 220 animals in the wild. There will probably be four or five larger captive-breeding sites, with thirty to forty animals each. Humans will still decide which wolves breed, which go into the wild, and which are removed from the wild.

That suggests that the red wolf will never be free of human oversight and intervention. The degree of human manipulation is a persistent issue in reintroductions here and in the Southwest. Says trapper Roy McBride, “It would be a constant harassment to the wolves to have people monitoring them all the time, capturing those that get off the reservation, putting in new wolves to keep the gene pool stirred. I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think it’s right for the wolves. Sharks got to swim or they’ll drown; wolves have to travel the country. I don’t know how we’re going to reestablish that. Are we going to get all the cities out and set aside three or four states?”