We had a presentation at our last OSTA convention, red wolf genetics were almost entirely coyote. Pretty much all coyotes east of the Mississippi have some domestic dog genetics and some wolf.

460 coyotes studied 5.7% black so 26.22 black coyotes (weird number but that's what the article says) of those black coyotes their average home range was bigger. That means if one black coyote had a larger home range the average is thrown off. That's just quick math and a wide angle view on the article. Needless to say I don't put much faith in a study of less than 500 total animals.

Exactly.

So at what point do we stop calling it a “red wolf” and just call it a coyote?

In their mind, never.

It's completely obvious their reasoning is agenda driven not science driven

I will add this to the conversation.
On the deer hunt with Maggy this past fall in Montana we saw a coyote as I’ve never seen. From the top of a ridge Maggy spotted the animal below us at maybe 350 yards cutting across and coming along the base of the ridge.
She asked what kind of animal it was, tho we had seen plenty of coyotes.
All I really saw was a black object moving, I thought maybe a fisher?
Thru the scope it was a very pale coyote but from the shoulders to the face it was black as could be. It stopped at one point and looked up at us and the face was normal, ears and neck all the way around were black, rear half and tail pale.

I wanted in the worst way to tickle the trigger but there were too many groups of deer we were seeing and her tag wasn’t filled. That was certainly a first in 50 plus years of chasing coyotes.

Osky

If black coyotes are the result of hybridization with melanistic red wolves, then why are there no black coyotes in the more northern area where there are melanistic gray wolves?

BTW, I've recently read that there really aren't any true red wolves remaining, they are all hybrids with coyotes to one degree or another.

I do not know if a black coyote has a bigger home range or not. But when I was selling to the running pens I had one old pen owner that would pay double for a black coyote. He said that the black run better than the normal coyote.

Just a guess but the "purer" the genetics between wolves and coyotes the stronger the repellent/antagonistic effect.

My best guess working opinion is the Red Wolf was a mostly wolf coyote hybrid skewing toward coyote as time went on. Probably a natural convergence of the two species interrupted by European colonization that disfavored wolves. Thus leading to the elimination of the wolf types leaving the coyotes that look like wolves.

Which raises the idea that if "speciation" is in a state of change over time, according to the evolutionists, then what exactly is being "preserved" in the Red Wolf. Could it have been there was change interrupted or even what is to say that human change is somehow not the natural order.

Well great job, as you just did just that !!!

Open mouth, insert foot !!!

w

Very few black coyotes in my area of N. Illinois. We do have the color phases yellow, reds, and mixes but pure black...no.
Have had some experience with so called coy-dogs and can say that they breed at all times of the year. While predator calling one winter shot what I thought was a large coyote...turned out to be a large female kujo looking female coy-dog...had yellow coyote eyes. She was showing that she was feeding pups. Weird. Trapped some big coyotes in Indiana biggest 42 pounds...tore my stock trap up.
My guess with these low fur prices and little interest in trapping....we will see more of these odd colors show up as the population goes unmanaged.

In areas where wolves and coyotes have always occurred in the same habitat, there is no need or reason for them to crossbreed. They each have plenty of their own kind to breed with.
Crossbreeding between wolves and coyotes is only going to occur when a far-ranging wolf ventures too far away from its own kind and settles for whatever will hold still when the heat comes in, such as a coyote or dog.
The same can be said for coyotes ranging too far away from their kind and encounter a dog in heat. Dogs do what dogs do.
As far as what color the pups are going to be for several generations after that initial crossbreeding, normal colored wolves likely carry the black phase gene, so it doesn't necessarily take a long-ranging black wolf to make black phase pups when it crossed with a coyote.

Why hasn’t hybridization occurred in the west?

We have all kinds of lone, transient wolves traveling out in predominantly coyote country.

Of course, we know what happens to a lone, transient coyote that wanders into wolf country.

I know what happens when a pair pf wolves wanders into my snared coyores

Color/ size , they are all coyotes.

Steel traps alot of the 'stray' dogs your catching are actually coyotes! Those don't have the yellow coyotes eye's or ANY feature about them to suggest they have one ounce of coyote in them. Urban trapping is how I found that out.

As for red wolves, the zoo in Birmingham had an exhibit of those and I drove there just to see them as id never seen one in person before. Way before i got to their enclosure i smelled coyote urine! Upon arrival at said red wolf enclosure i saw coyotes! Pacing back and forth trying to figure a way out of the place, after escaping the second time and never being found again they no longer had a 'red wolf' exhibit.

So what do those guys base the black squirrel on? Interbreeding with a chihuahua?

^^^HA. Now that is funny! Better be careful cause these splitters in the biological world within academia and government will be making the black fox squirrel its own species if this keeps up.

I do have to say, that I am curious about the dog/coyote=coydog explanation. Its certainly achievable, but the breeding strategy of domestic dogs and coyotes is way different and very off on timing. Around here, my (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) dogs come in twice a year; once in the late summer and once in middle/late spring. The coyotes here, are pairing up in late December/January and breeding like heck in February. Lots of pups born here in mid April.

I may be wrong, but I thought that dog coyotes can only breed (they are virile) during the breeding season; much like a buck deer. I don't know if that's the case or not, but if it is, then it would be pretty hard for a dog coyote to breed a (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) domestic dog around here.

So if they are breeding, then it is more than likely a male domestic dog is breeding a female (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) coyote. Which makes sense to me; as I've shot several yearling coyote jips in my yard in February, although I don't have any male dogs in the yard. The young jips just do crazy things during that time of year and seem to go to areas where there are dogs; at least here.

On another note, that article said that the first person to describe the "Red Wolf" was in Florida and called it Canis niger (black). But, in the same sentence, they said that it was in the late 1700s! I don't know if I read that wrong, but there wasn't supposed to be any coyotes east of the MS river then.

Also, I walked or rode a 4 wheeler from Yuma Arizona, to El Paso. I have also spent years along the border in Texas. There are white trash trailer parks all along the border with (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) dogs roaming free and their offspring everywhere. No one takes care of them, they just fend for themselves. There are plenty of coyotes in that area too; but I've never even heard of a black coyote being killed in those parts even though there is plenty of opportunity for them to interbreed.

That "black coyote" Chancey posted looks like a dog. Makes me wonder if you DNAed it, how much coyote genes it has. I knew a guy who had a coydog when I was a kid. Had a female cow dog that got bred by a coyote and raised a whole litter. Usually I suspect the breeding of coydogs goes the other direction, especially for those in the wild population. I have also heard that male coyotes are only virile for a few months of the year, not sure how true that is for eastern coyotes that have dog DNA in them. On the other hand domestic dogs come into heat at all times of the year. Most commonly twice a year although that can vary. I've owned hounds my whole life and have never noticed that there is a particular time of year (other than opening week of hunting season) that is more common for them to come into heat. Male domestic dogs are virile year round and would always be capable of breeding any coyote in heat they came across.

I've never seen a black coyote out west, color phases are very uncommon, I did catch a yellow one once, though.

I think it is far more likely that melanistic tendencies in coyotes are from interbreeding with domestic dogs than with wolves.

I'm convinced that Eastern coyotes have interbred with wolves in Eastern Canada on their way to the East Coast of L-48 states over time, but I don't think that black color is very likely to come from wolves. Eastern Canadian wolves from what I've seen are seldom black. Unlike Northern Canada and Alaska where a large percentage of our wolf populations are black.

Would the author of the article claim that "blonde" coyotes are the result of hybridization with wolves? Blonde wolves are almost unheard of.

Pete

What I find suspicious is they are supposedly crossbreeding with a supposed "species" of which they have a)no purebred samples to study, b)no melanistic crossbreed samples and c)are so exceedingly rare that there is considerable argument on whether there was ever any such species in the first place. And this is where we are getting 5-7% black coyotes from?