Talk:Mexican wolf

ESA???

The article states in the lead para 'After being placed on the ESA in 1976'. ESA links to the European Space Agency. I'm certain this is wrong but I don't know where this link should lead. Should it lead to something more American/ Mexican specific? Can someone fix this appropriately? I know they used to send dogs into space but... wolves? Although wolves let loose on the international space station might make an interesting reality TV show! 18.52, 21st January 2014 (GMT)

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Hello, In Sierra Madre Occidental (Chihuahua, Mexico) there are also Mexican Wolves in freedom — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.219.121.0 (talk) 21:45, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Current Topics in Environmental Biology

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 10 January 2022 and 8 April 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): GreWar29 (article contribs).

Greetings, I have added two scientific articles regarding three imported lineages of these wolves into the United States, as well as a brief overview about the restrictions of their restoration area. These are links for first and second articles. --GreWar29 (talk) 16:04, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Suggested Range Map Update

If someone is able to update the Range Map, I recommend the following changes (as of February 2023):

The Arizona and New Mexico ranges should expand northward, at least to Highway I-40. This is the farthest north that they are currently allowed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and individuals often disperse this far.

The Arizona range should be expanded westward toward at least the center of the state, and southward toward the border with Mexico.

The New Mexico range should also be expanded south toward the Mexico border, and eastward toward Highway I-25. Bbreslau (talk) 20:50, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Do you have any source information to use for that? There are plenty of folks who can make the updated map, but they require sourcing just like any other changes. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:00, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Sure thing! The updated Mexican Wolf Experimental Population Area and Blue Range Recovery Area in the US can be found here: https://www.fws.gov/program/conserving-mexican-wolf/species

Here is an example of the US Fish and Wildlife Service limiting dispersal north of Highway I-40: https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2023-01/mexican-wolf-captured-north-interstate-40-new-mexico

This US Federal Government delisting of Gray wolves from 2020 includes up-to-date maps of all wolf distributions and future range to expand in the US, including the (still listed) Mexican wolf: https://www.regulations.gov/document/FWS-HQ-ES-2018-0097-107831 Bbreslau (talk) 17:56, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Whew! Those are some dense documents. The map makers can be contacted via Wikipedia:Graphics Lab/Map workshop‎. Point them to those docs and tell them which maps in the references you want combined into a single map. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:30, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Great, I'll contact them. Thank you for your help! Bbreslau (talk) 07:16, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

The updated Mexican Wolf Experimental Population Area and Blue Range Recovery Area in the US". This image is public domain.

Also see https://www.fws.gov/species/mexican-wolf-canis-lupus-baileyi/map (for the mexican wolf occurences in these states). This one is not public domain. But it show the subspecies range in both states, and could be easily grossly replicated, as per the mexican wolf being everywhere in Arizona exception made of the Southwest (West & Southwest of Phoenix & Tucson) & the North-Central Portion of the state. Western, and Central-West New Mexico :)

I'm glad that you took the initiative to make changes to reflect the current range of these wolves. If you want or can't find the annual reports of the Mexican wolves, i got the Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan (1982) and each annual reports from 1998 to 2017 in my possession. So if you need some of them, let me know.

They really really came close to extinction, with one adult female (AF0005) being really really important. Had she died during 1981 without producing female offsprings (as stated in a letter dated 22 May 1981 inside of the 1982 Mexican Wolf recovery plan), The USFWS would have dropped the breeding program. She was 9 years old in June 1981, had at least 2 litters of pups (likely 3) [Wild Litter 1977, 4 males in 1978 (reproduced in the wild but born in captivity) and she had 1 male & 3 females pups in May 1981. We were very lucky. Gimly24 (talk) 18:16, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, I appreciate the additional info! Do you know if this map represents the current distribution? If so, then we should add this to the map update request I submitted in Wikipedia:Graphics Lab/Map workshop. Bbreslau (talk) 16:12, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

No problem ! Which map are you talking about ? https://www.fws.gov/species/mexican-wolf-canis-lupus-baileyi/map (this one is up-to-date) i believe yeah. Gimly24 (talk) 17:14, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Cool, I'll add it to the request!

I was using these maps:

https://www.fws.gov/program/conserving-mexican-wolf/species

https://www.regulations.gov/document/FWS-HQ-ES-2018-0097-107831

Long document, but the specific map I used is: https://img.federalregister.gov/ER03NO20.017/ER03NO20.017_original_size.png Bbreslau (talk) 18:07, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Could the expanded range also be incorporated on this map here, using basic Microsoft Paint? Mariomassone (talk) 20:56, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Definitely! I can add it to the request I put on Wikipedia:Graphics Lab/Map workshop. Feel free to take a look at the post on there in case there's anything else I missed :) Bbreslau (talk) 21:03, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

I think this map could also use an update to reflect the recent wolf population expansions in Central and Western Europe, but I'd have to dig around to find the latest ranges since I don't know them offhand. Do you have any sources on that? Bbreslau (talk) 21:06, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

I can help you with this ! Gimly24 (talk) 21:48, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

https://cinea.ec.europa.eu/featured-projects/wolflife_en (WolfLIFE, Romania) | https://wolflife.eu/home (Romania) (https://drive.google.com/file/d/13J1t5prJRf-kTqudj5MH09IhQJxAxwj0/view) [Current estimates – When? How? By whom? - Occurence Map in 2016 by the Romanian Ministry of Environment, in "Wolf (Canis lupus) in the Eastern Romanian Carpathians: First estimates of population parameters based on a non-invasive integrated sampling design" (Sin et al, 2017)]

https://www.volkovi.si/wp-content/uploads/ (SloWolf publications, everything you need to know) :

https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/life/publicWebsite/index.cfm?fuseaction=search.dspPage&n_proj_id=2202 (Croatia)

https://www.lifewolfalps.eu/fr/ (WolfAlps : France, Slovenia, Italy, Austria)

https://www.dbb-wolf.de/the-dbbw (DBBW-Germany)

https://www.kora.ch/en/species (KORA - Switzerland) | https://www.kora.ch/en/projects/wolf/completed-projects/25-years-of-wolf-presence-in-switzerland--an-interim-assessment (25 YEARS OF WOLF PRESENCE IN SWITZERLAND – AN INTERIM ASSESSMENT)

https://lifelobo.es/en/ (Project Life Andalusia - Part of Spain)

https://fundacja-save.pl/en/species-protection/europe/wolf-project/ (Part of Poland)

https://rm.coe.int/inf45e-2022-wolf-assessment-bern-convention-2791-5979-4182-1-2/1680a7fa47 (CONVENTION ON THE CONSERVATION OF EUROPEAN WILDLIFE AND NATURAL HABITATS, Standing Committee, 42nd meeting, 28 November - 2 December 2022, Assessment of the conservation status of the Wolf (Canis lupus) in Europe)

I'le add other pages when i get the time, i follow so many things on wolves ! Gimly24 (talk) 21:59, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you!! I'll look over these when I have a chance and add them to the request; unless you'd like to add them if you're up to it Bbreslau (talk) 10:19, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I appreciate the wolf enthusiasm too! I try to follow them closely, and I've had the privilege of working on conservation of Yellowstone wolves and Mexican wolves in the US Bbreslau (talk) 10:20, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

That's amazing ! I am currently doing a project with many wolf researchers around the world. It's on the relationships between the size of individual wolves and the size of their primary prey(s). I cumulated over 6000 individual weights of wolves from the literature and via communications and made a thorough review of wolf prey, diet, prey selection and prey mass studies aswell as wolf masses. I got around 750 studies on wolves in my computer. FYI, I'm making a regression of adult wolf weights against mean prey adult weights (M/F). I got, in preliminary analyses, around 1200 adults weights (we used age 2 and up for adults) of each sex and covering about 28 countries. It's real cool. That's while doing this project (which i am still doing) that i came across and saved many many studies, news, reports and etc !

The Yellowstone Wolf Population is so interesting ! They made me love wolves even more by how well they know each and every wolf of this population and their stories. I went twice to Yellowstone from Québec, Canada (my birth province and home). In 2014 & 2018, i didn't see wolves. But it was so fun !

Anyways, wolves are outstanding animals and key players of ecosystems. For example, what happens when you remove a apex/large predator from an ecosystem like Yellowstone for 70 years ?

Yes, large herbivores (which accounts for maybe 10% of the mammals species of the GYE) will increase but with some problems. What about the 80-90% of mammals species remaining (Small and medium size) ? They are threatened by a non-regulated mesopredator (The coyote). They became the "Top Dog" in Yellowstone for 70 years (1920's to 1995) and start socializing like wolves. Packs of coyotes grew bigger and bigger by the years, with the average of adults by pack reaching 6 in the early 1990's and pack size of up to 19 !!!

Although coyotes did not pose a quasi-inexistant threats to elk, bison, bighorn sheep, mountain goats and moose; they were threats to fawns of smaller deer species and pronghorns and reduced greatly to numbers of rodents species present in the GYE or at least their populations. That's why when the wolf was reintroduced, a balance was regained progressively. As coyotes regulate red foxes, wolves regulated coyotes, killing half the population in the first 5 years after the reintroduction (either directly or by destroying/killings coyotes pups/dens). They are, like beavers, ecosystems engineers. They modify and influences directly and indirectly so many things alive and even abiotics parameters by their behaviours. The return of predation threats to elk especially, reworked the whole distributional and spatial ecology of the herds, how, when and where they fed, etc. They started to avoid browsing certain areas, and that permitted vegetation regrowth, etc !

It's simply a fascinating field and ecological beauty, it's hard not to be excited about it :)

P-S : I strayed away from the topic of maps, didn't I ? Anyways, wolves fascinate me. Gimly24 (talk) 16:02, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

No worries!! If you want to geek out about wolves and other wildlife elsewhere, I'd be happy to message on social media or DMs :)

I'd love to learn more about your research and career! Bbreslau (talk) 16:44, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Awesome ! We shall see about this ! I re-organized and structured Talk:List of gray wolf populations by country. I count on working on that a bit. Note that some might have the range already covered but still it's good to have resources :) Gimly24 (talk) 16:47, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! Would you be up for adding those requests to the Map Update Request in Wikipedia:Graphics Lab/Map workshop ? That way we can make sure it's all in one place Bbreslau (talk) 16:49, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm adding links right now/or studies, then i would go looking for maps in those. I mostly know where to find them in most cases. But i will later when i got time update the Graphics lab/Map workshop. I might hint them on a upcoming European (and Asian?) update :) Gimly24 (talk) 16:53, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! I look forward to the updates :)

Let me know if I can contribute other information as well Bbreslau (talk) 16:58, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

yes, i'm going to give you a few links on North American wolves for you to look up, if you'd like.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Repopulation_of_wolves_in_Midwestern_United_States

There i post some vagrant wolves from "unusual states" and some states like Michigan and Wisconsin (whom both now got pops well above 400 wolves) [Don't request anything about unusual states or provinces, they are vagrants and aren't wolf populations : New York, Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Vermont, Massachussets, Utah, Nevada, Nebraska, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, etc]

• https://wgfd.wyo.gov/Wildlife-in-Wyoming/Large-Carnivore/Wolves-in-Wyoming (Wyoming) (see annual reports)
• https://fwp.mt.gov/conservation/wildlife-management/wolf (Montana) (See annual reports)
• https://collaboration.idfg.idaho.gov/WildlifeTechnicalReports/Thompson%20et%20al.%202022%20IDFG%20Report%20Camera-based%20estimation%20of%20statewide%20wolf%20abundance%20in%20Idaho.pdf (Idaho, Camera-Based Estimation of Statewide Wolf Abundance in Idaho - 2019–2021)
• https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/at-risk/species-recovery/gray-wolf/updates (Washington)
• https://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/02317 (Washington Gray Wolf Conservation and Management 2021 Annual Report)
• https://www.dfw.state.or.us/Wolves/annual_reports.asp (Oregon annual reports)

Gimly24 (talk) 17:37, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Awesome, thank you! I also just updated the Mexican Wolf page with an ecology section where I discussed their habitats, diets, and competitors Bbreslau (talk) 18:24, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Wow ! Splendid. Thanks a lot ! I've been exploding the talk in list of gray wolves by country with a lot of citations and I'm even finding some i didn't knew about beforehand lol (like a wolf diet study on Flanders, in Belgium, in 2021). I knew wolves had 1-2 packs there since 2018 but i elated to find a diet study ! It's like when Delinger et al (2021) did one on the summer diet of Californian wolves ! I was estatic ! Gimly24 (talk) 19:37, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Love it!! I just took a glance. This may not be directly relevant to the Populations by Country page, but I love this little behavioral tidbit from the main Wolf article (which I'll also transplant to the Arabian wolf article):

"There is at least one case in Israel of a hyena associating and cooperating with a wolf pack. It is proposed that the hyena could benefit from the wolves' superior ability to hunt large, agile prey. The wolves could benefit from the hyena's superior sense of smell, to locate and dig out tortoises, to crack open large bones, and to tear open discarded food containers like tin cans." Citation: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Striped-Hyaenas-(Hyaena-hyaena)-in-Grey-Wolf-(Canis-Dinets-Eligulashvili/75ddead62da33c81b4c4958467154ee6744b9a65 Bbreslau (talk) 19:52, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Striped hyenas are more kleptoparasites than anything and rarely does Arabian wolves have more than 2-3 non-pups wolves in a pack on average (at least in the case of Southern Negev Desert, Hefner and Geffen, 1999). In the Golan Heights (Reichmann & Saltz 2005), arabian wolves are larger and may select more for wild boar than the smaller Dorcas Gazelles. There, numbers of wolves by pack were higher. Arabian wolves are quite small and their preys are too. They live mostly in areas with low prey diversity and/or abundance, mostly desertic or semi-desertic environnements. They don't really benefit being in large groups due to the biomass of prey that are near them and the effort to catch what they typically eat. What i mean, is, that except on large garbage dumps or livestock and herding animals carcasses, rare are the times arabian wolves are observed in large groups. I'm guessing that this study, although without a doubt interesting, present a (probably, perhaps unique ?) unusual interaction with striped hyenas and discuss what benefits each could bring to the others and others hypothetical things ?

For example, is there things like this recorded with other canids and hyenas, for instance african wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) and spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) ? I don't know because i didn't look that up, but they [spotties] are at war with pretty much every pack carnivores in Africa and aren't very permissive or tolerant at carcasses (and also steal a lot of those from more efficient carnivores like AWDs or Cheetahs). However, Spotted hyenas are highly social mammals, a characteristic that with their build, environnement and high pressure ecosystem permits them to survive. The savannahs are highly visible areas where animals are prone to be in groups (gazelles, zebras, wildebeest, elephants, hartebeest, etc) and where packs or pairs are also quite common (lions, wild dogs, jackals, cheetahs coalitions of males, etc).

If i remember correctly, Striped hyenas are less social than "spotties" and are more likely to be found alone or in small groups (Whereas spotties clans have been reported and observed at 50 and even more members at times).

In my honest opinion, the anecdotal event with the lone hyena is okay to add in the arabian wolf article but adding what seems to be parts of the discussion section of the study with what the authors suggest/proposed at what's in for both species in "potential" interactions (commensalism, mutualism, kinda stuff) is "iff-iff". I believe it's not Wikipedia common usage to present what an author point of view(s)/suggestions/proposals on less-than-studied/uncommon events. It would probably need others studies supporting/observing these kind of stuff. I might read the study later, but yeah, i wouldn't include the parts with the suggestions and the ideas. Gimly24 (talk) 20:18, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

For sure; as of right now, it's just an isolated incident. But at least it's published in a peer-reviewed source, so it's more reliable than heresay.

As for other wolf- non-wolf interactions, the only "amicable" ones that I'm aware of off the top of my head are between wolves and other canids. Wolves have repeatedly interbred with domestic dogs throughout history, implying mutual attraction for at least those individuals. Red wolves commonly hybridize with coyotes, especially when one wolf can't find another nearby to mate with. Eurasian wolves occasionally hybridize with golden jackals as well.

I've also personally recorded trail camera footage of Mexican wolves and coyotes tolerating each other's presence at feeding sites. Sometimes there is aggression, other times they'll let each other be.

There is also occasional footage of wolves and bears (both brown bears and polar bears) tolerating each other's presence.

However, I agree with you that these are all exceptions rather than the rule; there's abundant evidence that wolves usually act aggressively toward other canids and other carnivores in general.

As for spotted hyenas, it's also true that they're predominantly aggressive toward other carnivores. I don't know enough about striped hyenas to say whether they display the same behavior. Bbreslau (talk) 20:28, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't know enough either about striped hyenas. Wolves and bears often tolerate themselves but not always because they "want" or "decide" to.

And yes, wolves and coyotes often "tolerate" each other.

Then again, wolves in North America are much larger, coyotes are perhaps 5-10 kg lighter than the arabian wolf, and the position of the coyote would be that of the arabian wolf with the striped hyena, that is, being the smaller predator of the two.

All of these wolves-bears, wolves-coyotes are well documented and studied, wolves-hyenas which involves a different family (the hyenas), aren't that documented yet. Gimly24 (talk) 20:46, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I entirely agree, though there's nothing wrong with focusing exclusively on the Mexican wolf's range for the time being. My "speciality" these days is with Italian wolves, and all range updates I've seen so far lack reference maps. Mariomassone (talk) 21:12, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

That's fair. Currently, I've combined all wolf things I could think of into one big request on the Map Updates page. But if it gets too unwieldy, we could always split it into multiple requests Bbreslau (talk) 21:15, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Killed by mountain lions

• F482 (Breeding Female of the Campbell Blue Pack, 1998/1999)

The CB pair used remote areas not readily accessible to ground monitoring. The pair localized briefly in early May, but we were not able to confirm a den location. No live pups were ever observed from this pair. Later necropsy of F482 revealed six placental scars, indicating she had conceived pups. On October 27, F482 was found dead within her normal home range. Necropsy performed by the National Wildlife Health Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin revealed that she had been killed by a bite from a large carnivore, consistent with a mountain lion attack. We had previously documented M166 feeding on mountain lion kills, suggesting this may have been the situation in which F482 was killed.

• M1244 (Adult Male, 2 years old, Lone Wolf in New Mexico)

M1244 was killed by a mountain lion Gimly24 (talk) 01:56, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

References