Are there wolves in ky

I also learned that gray wolves have been seen or killed in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. In parts of the country, the gray wolf population has recovered and is no longer endangered. When a species grows in population, it expands its range. The gray wolf can easily travel more than miles seeking out new territory.

At the same time, there is a documented, rapidly expanding Northeastern population of wolf-coyote hybrids that scientists call coywolves. Dogs, coyotes, and wolves come from the same Canis genus, so interbreeding among all three is possible and has occurred.

Biologists with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources say they have no evidence yet of the coywolf in Kentucky. What creatures are visiting me by the fire? Pollpeter hopes that these programs will shine a light on the ecological importance of the red wolf, as opposed to lumping the species in with other creepy-crawlies and monsters. Kind of a Jekyll and Hyde almost situation. We have wolf origami; play-dough pups, which kids can do some creative play in making their own wolves; we have some activities where the kids can actually act like a wolf.

We feed them every day around [p. We give them special treats during that time period. See the full Wolf Week schedule below or visit the Kentucky Lake website :. This report first ran on WKMS. It was only after he had shot and killed the animal that he realized it probably wasn't a coyote after all, but instead an endangered grey wolf. Even Kentucky wildlife officials were skeptical that the animal Troyer had shot was a free-roaming wild wolf -- after all, the species hadn't been spotted in the state since the mids.

But now, after DNA from the mystery canine was sent for testing at the U. Fish and Wildlife Service Forensics Laboratory in Oregon, the deceased animal has been proven to be a gray wolf. Normally, hunters targeting grey wolves would face prosecution for killing an endangered species, but authorities have decided that Troyer had mistakenly thought it was a coyote -- an animal which can be hunted under state law. How the wolf came to reenter Kentucky remains a mystery ; the nearest known population of the species is in northern Michigan, about miles away.

It wouldn't be the first time, however, that a lone individual wandered into a state thought to be wolf-free. In , a single gray wolf briefly wandered into California, the first in nearly 90 years.

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