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Canids (Canidae) & Hyaenids (Hyaenidae)
Wolf (Canis lupus)
Wolf (Canis lupus)
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Wolf (Canis lupus)
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Wolf snapped in the Sundarbans for the first time
Quote:It is a stray individual that has dispersed nearly 350 km from the nearest wolf population in Purulia, say experts (I said that)Last Updated: Wednesday 19 April 2017  *This image is copyright of its original author An Indian Wolf (Canis lupus pallipes) has been photographed in the Indian part of the Sundarbans for the first time, sending conservation circles in West Bengal and in other parts of the country into a tizzy. “We were on a tour on April 14. It was late evening. Since it was already sundown, we could not enter the forest proper. Hence, we went to the buffer zone. I had heard from my local guide, Mrityunjoy Mondol that some villagers had seen an alien-looking animal in the area which resembled a Golden Jackal (Canis aureus). We went to check. While travelling through an area called Jyotirampur, called by locals as “Paakhi jangal” (Bird forest), our guide showed us the animal. We shot a few photos and the creature went back into the forest. Then, it came out again and we clicked some more shots. The whole process went on for about 15 minutes. Because it was sundown, we returned back,” Riddhi Mukherjee, a wildlife photographer who works for a local tour company and shot the wolf, told Down To Earth over the phone from his base camp in the Sundarbans. “I have never seen or heard about a wolf in the Sundarbans either on the Indian or the Bangladeshi side. I have checked previous records and there has been no sighting previously,” said Mukherjee. Quote:“Wolves travel a long distance when they disperse. They can go for hundreds of kilometres. The closest wolf population from the Sundarbans is about 300-350 kilometres away in Purulia. This animal could have strayed or dispersed into the Sundarbans from there,” Y V Jhala, one of India’s foremost canid (dog family) experts told Down To Earth. Jhala also discounted any possibility of the wolf having been forcibly introduced into the area, “It is a full-grown adult male. At that age, you cannot introduce it. If it would have been a pup or a juvenile, then introduction would have been possible,” he said.  *This image is copyright of its original author He added that an Indian Wolf usually used to arid scrub grasslands could survive in a mangrove forest. “It can survive. However, this animal will not live in the mangroves proper but on the outskirts.” Jhala also said that there was no need to make a hullabaloo about the incident. “This animal has been photographed in the villages on the outskirts of the mangrove forest, in the buffer zone of the Sundarbans National Park. It will live there and come occasionally into the mangroves to scavenge. And this is a single individual. Had there been a breeding population, it would have been a big deal.”  *This image is copyright of its original author The picture was taken by Anupam Mukherjee in April this year 2017. Its not first evidence. This report suggest in the year 2008 similar animal was captured by FD. Even FD official has clarified in FB.  *This image is copyright of its original author https://ebela.in/state/forest-department...ign=fb_mab
Recognise Himalayan wolf as a distinct species: study
 *This image is copyright of its original author Himalayan wolf is a distinct species of wolf, which shows unique genetic adaptation to the difficult conditions in the Asian high altitude ecosystems, found a study, reiterating that it needs to be identified as a species of special conservation concern. “Conservation action for the Himalayan wolf is required and of global conservation interest,” noted the study. For the study, the researchers used over 280 samples of scat and hair from the Himalayan region of Nepal, which included Humla and Dolpa districts in the north-western Nepalese Himalayas and the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area (KCA) in the north-eastern Nepalese Himalayas, during the spring and summer periods of 2014-2016. Explaining that the Himalayan wolf is a little-understood wolf lineage found in the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau of Asia, the study noted that the species diverged from the Holarctic grey wolf 691,000 to 740,000 years ago. The Holarctic region includes all the non-tropical parts of Europe, Asia, Africa (north of the Sahara), and North America (till the Mexican desert region). According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the global population of grey wolf (Canis lupus) is estimated to be 200,000-250,000 individuals. *This image is copyright of its original author The Himalayan wolf inhabits the high altitude regions of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau. Genetic studies revealed that they are adapted to the extreme conditions of these mountain ranges. Photo by Geraldine Werhahn/Himalayan Wolves Project.“The Himalayan wolf presents an overlooked wolf lineage that is phylogenetically [evolutionarily] distinct from grey wolves. Current evidence indicates that this wolf has diverged as an own lineage before the radiation of modern grey wolves. Hence the Himalayan wolf presents an evolutionary significant wolf population that merits appropriate taxonomic recognition,” Geraldine Werhahn, lead author of the study, told Mongabay-India. Taxonomy is a system of classifying species. Relationships between species can be represented as a family tree, known as a phylogeny. Werhahn explained that the Himalayan wolf is more “distinct than many of the currently recognised subspecies of the grey wolf, hence the debate around it potentially meriting full species recognition.” “The Himalayan wolf is adapted to life in the extreme high altitude habitats of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau and along with the snow leopard, is a top predator in this ecosystem. Predators enjoy a growing recognition for the important roles they fulfill, like maintaining ecosystem health and balance. Currently, this wolf is overlooked by science and conservation and local people are not aware that this wolf needs to be conserved and is of global relevance,” added Werhahn, who is a conservation biologist at the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) at the Zoology department of the University of Oxford. The study is a collaborative project between researchers from the U.K., Nepal, Spain, Kyrgyzstan and the U.S.A. According to the study, the Himalayan wolf has been documented at 3,900-5,600 metres above sea level across the continuous landscape of the Himalayas and genetic evidence has confirmed its presence in the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau.  *This image is copyright of its original author Himalayan wolf pups playing in Upper Dolpa, Nepal. Video by Geraldine Werhahn/Himalayan Wolves Project.The study stated that Nepal, with its northern area dominated by the Himalayan mountain range, holds a considerable Himalayan wolf population. It emphasised that the “dramatic inaccessible high Himalayan landscapes may present important habitat refuges for the Himalayan wolf” and recommended that Nepal should play a leading role in Himalayan wolf conservation and act as a role model for the other range countries, which currently, along with Nepal, include India and China. Sharing her experience of the study, Werhahn stated that the majority of local people in the Himalayan wolf habitats are Buddhists and have a comparable tolerant and integral attitude towards the natural world around them. “They have coexisted for centuries in these challenging but immensely beautiful ecosystems. Local people are not aware that the Himalayan wolf, similar to the snow leopard, needs to be protected and that they should not kill it. Snow leopard conservation has been in place since some decades now and local people are much more aware to not kill snow leopards. Now, the same must happen for Himalayan wolves,” she said. “In fact, all predators, and these whole predator guild conservation actions can go hand in hand with conservation actions already in place and functioning for snow leopards,” said Werhahn while replying to a query about the attitude of the local people toward the Himalayan wolf. Separate species status would help in conservation As per the study, the evaluation of the conservation status of the Himalayan wolf and the subsequent implementation of conservation actions is “hindered by scarce data on taxonomic status, distribution and ecology.” “Although the scientific evidence supporting its genetic uniqueness has been accumulating in recent years, reliable population estimates are lacking, ranging from 350 individuals in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh (in India) to several thousand in Tibet and Qinghai,” the study said. Werhahn stressed that the main problem in conservation of this wolf species is scarce data and that it does not get the attention of science and conservation. “Once it is assigned its appropriate and required taxonomic classification, it can then be assigned an IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) conservation status. And these two necessary advancements, taxonomic recognition and conservation status, are crucial to improve conservation efforts with regard to political leverage, but also conservation awareness and conservation funding. This will trigger an increasing interest to research and conserve this wolf,” she said. She further said that later some more specific actions to mitigate livestock depredation, ensure healthy wild prey populations and decrease illegal wildlife trade of its parts can be taken for the purpose of conservation of the Himalayan wolf.  *This image is copyright of its original author Reserchers suggest that the Himalayan wolf should be classified as a subspecies of the grey wolf or as an entirely distinct species. This will also act as a push towards increasing research and conservation efforts for the understudied and elusive predator. Photo by Geraldine Werhahn/Himalayan Wolves Project.CITATION: Werhahn, G. et al., The unique genetic adaptation of the Himalayan wolf to high-altitudes and consequences for conservation, Global Ecology and Conservation, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2018.e00455 
A bit rare encounter to see on video, so I put this here too. Wolverine eating and then wolf comes to take his part too :)
One video, which might have been here before, but I put it still just because there isn´t so much good recordings about wolf-wolverine interaction in wild. Here wolverine shows some skills, which not all people connect to them, but which saves a lot of lives of wolverines. 1. It can also flee and 2. It is excellent what comes to climbing to trees :) And I put this video here also, because those wolves are in very nice shape as is that wolverine too, beautiful animals :)
Quite interesting new article about wolves and wolverines, well more about wolverines.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/wolves-and-wolverines-a-complicated-relationship/
I have to put this here too, I already put this on wolverine thread:
This is a "must see". Finnish link, so text is not possible to understand for most once again, but watch that video clip, where lone wolf attacks that wolverine, "wow" :  You need to scroll down article until that video is there. It is a loop, starting point is when wolverine rises to hind legs when it notices that wolf at last moment (approached under the wind, so that wolverine could´t smell it). That is quite something to see that attack by that wolf!!! https://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2016/11/22/petojen-valtakunta (05-07-2019, 01:52 AM)Shadow Wrote: I have to put this here too, I already put this on wolverine thread: I have to add this much. That incident is quite interesting and in a way funny too. There is a moose carcass and that wolverine was nearby it, when wolf chased it up to the tree. Later wolverine came down and fled. After that as it can be seen on video, wolf suddenly is scared and tail between legs, guy who was there filming was first confused, but then saw reason. Male bear was coming and approaching carcass. Wolf was looking around like trying to see if other wolves nearby to help, but then fled too further. Alone it didn´t dare to try anything with bear :)
Here is wolf hunted last December at Kirov, Russia. Photo is typical hunting photo to highlight size of animal, but despite that, this wolf looks like to be a big one. But in this article nothing about size of weight.
https://kirov-portal.ru/news/poslednie-novosti/v-kirovskoj-oblasti-ohotniki-ubili-stayu-volkov-27407/ 
Endangered Mexican wolves blamed for more livestock deaths
It's shaping up to be a deadly year for livestock in the American Southwest as the number of cows and calves killed by Mexican gray wolves has skyrocketed, aggravating an already tenuous relationship between U.S. wildlife managers, environmentalists and rural residents. Federal reports show the endangered wolves have been blamed for the deaths of 88 domestic animals in New Mexico and Arizona in the first four months of the year. That's on pace to surpass the nearly 100 livestock kills confirmed in all of 2018 and significantly more than has been recorded over the same four-month period in any year since the predators were reintroduced in 1998. More Mexican wolves are in the wild now than at any time since they were nearly exterminated decades ago. A subspecies of the Western gray wolf, Mexican wolves have faced a difficult road to recovery that has been complicated by politics and conflicts with livestock. Catron County Manager Bill Green said his constituents have seen calf birth rates drop by one-third or more and they feel there's nowhere to turn because federal officials say they have a responsibility under the federal Endangered Species Act to restore the wolves. Some ranchers and rural residents expect things to get worse as the wolf population grows. There are at least 131 of the predators in the mountain ranges spanning southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona.  *This image is copyright of its original author A Mexican gray wolf is seen at the Endangered Wolf Center Monday, May 20, 2019, in Eureka, Mo. Mexican gray wolves have been blamed for killing nearly as many cows and calves in the first four months of 2019 as they did all of last year. Federal wildlife managers have documented 88 livestock kills from January through April in New Mexico and Arizona. Nearly 100 were reported for all of 2018. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson) "On the local front, it's been a battle to keep the impact as small as possible," Green said. "We have several ranchers in areas next to wilderness that are already being run out of business." Wolves were found to be responsible for killing more than three dozen cows and calves in April alone. That was almost double the previous month. While ranchers see the reintroduction program as a threat to a livelihood already complicated by drought and rising costs, environmentalists contend more can be done to discourage wolves from targeting livestock. The environmental group Defenders of Wildlife has been working with some ranchers in the Southwest. Some ideas are simple - from using range riders to keep a close eye on herds or quickly disposing of cattle carcasses to keep from attracting wolves. Brady McGee, who heads the Mexican wolf recovery program for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said wolves often can run into trouble because the grazing and calving seasons are year-round in the Southwest. "Part of this is for the wolf program to survive, we need to create a social tolerance out there," he said. "In order to create that social tolerance, we have to be able to reduce and minimize wolves eating livestock and reduce those conflicts." Some money is allocated annually for reimbursing livestock losses, but federal officials acknowledge they need more to provide incentives for the livestock industry to take more precautions to protect herds. McGee said wildlife managers could set up food caches for denning wolves to shift the focus from cattle. He also suggested ranchers reposition their herds at key times and pen them up in smaller pastures, explaining that some of the highest livestock mortality comes early in the year when wolves are denning. "That's part of what the livestock industry could do, is be part of that chess game and move their cows around," he said. Some argue the wolves already are highly managed: They're rounded up when they stray outside certain boundaries, when they pair with the wrong mate or if they develop an affinity for livestock. Biologists also decide which captive-bred pups are matched with wild packs as part of fostering efforts to boost the population. Bryan Bird with Defenders of Wildlife says wolves are as much a social and cultural issue for ranchers and rural residents as they are a scientific challenge. "We believe that social change can only come from inside the community," Bird said. "It doesn't come from the federal government or the advocates pushing change on these people. It has to happen from within, and it has to happen organically."  *This image is copyright of its original author In this Feb. 13, 2019, photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a member of the Mexican gray wolf recovery team carries a wolf captured during an annual census near Alpine, Ariz (Mark Davis, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via AP)  *This image is copyright of its original author Gathering data from the animal
Alaska's salmon eating wolves
The wolf puppy was fishing in the intertidal zone, working the riffles where salmon were exposed in the shallow stream. She waded into the water to grab a fish and pulled it flopping onto the bank, where she ate just the head. It’s a scene Dave Person has witnessed many times. The Alaska Fish and Game biologist has been studying wolves on Prince of Wales Island for 12 years, documenting habitat needs, denning requirements and a variety of behaviors. He’s monitored this fishing behavior with three packs of wolves over the past five years. When people think of food for wolves, big game comes to mind: deer in Southeast, caribou in the north, and moose throughout much of the state. Big game is the mainstay for most wolves, but it’s all they eat. Researchers are finding that Alaska wolves also eat salmon. And they aren’t simply scavenging salmon carcasses. In late summer, when pink and chum salmon are running, Person has spent hours watching wolves actively fishing - catching, killing and eating salmon. “They’re not as skillful as bears at fishing,” Person said. Most of the fishing takes place when the tide is low, on the flats where streams are crossing through the intertidal zone. The wolves target fish in shallow water and isolated in tidal pools. “A lot of the time, when they’re all flush with salmon, they’ll bite the heads off and just eat the heads,” he said. Salmon is an important seasonal food source, but it is especially important for the pups, Person said. For the youngest members of the packs, the chance to fatten up on fish in the fall can mean life or death over the winter. The packs Person has studied are structured around one breeding pair. They mate in winter and the pups are usually born the last week of April or the first week of May. In early summer, when the puppies are nursing, the wolves stay pretty close to their dens in the forest. But in early July, when the pups are about two months old, the packs move out of their dens and relocate closer to the water. “Each year they spend over a month in estuary areas, with the pups,” Person said. “It’s right in middle of pink and chum runs, and we watch them eat salmon all the time. There are lots of places they could go; I think they go there for the fish.” Early fall is a vulnerable time for the pups. As youngsters, they were nursed and fed regurgitated meat. But as they are weaned and begin to join the pack on hunts, their role in the pack changes. “They’re the low dogs on the totem pole,” Person said. “When a deer is killed, they may be the last ones to get anything to eat. So salmon is a real bonus food supply.” That pays off for the wolf pups that Person has observed in Southeast Alaska. “Salmon allows them to have a very high survivorship,” Person said. “In places like Minnesota, half the pups die in their first summer. Here, we’ve noticed a 90 percent survivorship; I think salmon may play an important part in that.” Historically, salmon has been under-reported as a food source for wolves, in part because it doesn’t show up in wolf scat the way evidence of deer or beaver does. The bones, fur and hair in wolf droppings offer good clues to the predators’ diet, but wolves can completely digest salmon bones. There are invisible clues, however, and biologist Shelly Szepanski has pursued those. Szepanski, a former Alaska Fish and Game biologist in McGrath, is now doing graduate work at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. Over the years she heard stories about wolves fishing for salmon, and she decided to investigate. Her approach was not to watch wolves, but to look at what wolves are made of. “It’s true that you are what you eat,” Szepanski said. The nitrogen, carbon and other elements in plants become the building blocks of animal tissue - and those elements can be traced as they move up the food chain from herbivores to predators. Those elements have distinct signatures reflecting their origin. Using a technique called stable isotope analysis, scientists can distinguish whether the carbon and nitrogen that make up an animal’s tissue has come from a marine environment or a terrestrial one. A predator’s bone is derived primarily from the protein of its prey, and is an indicator of diet over the lifetime of the animal. Szepanski was able to take small bits of wolf bone and trace what percent of that wolf’s diet came from terrestrial sources – caribou or deer, for example – and how much came from marine sources, like salmon. Szepanski contacted trappers and the University of Alaska museum for an assortment of wolf skulls and took small samples. She analyzed samples from about 200 Alaska wolves, selecting about 50 representatives from four different geographic regions: Interior Alaska, coastal mainland Southeast, Kupreanof Island and Prince of Wales Islands. The results indicated that wolves do indeed eat salmon. As might be expected, Southeast Alaska wolves relied more on salmon than Interior Alaska wolves. Salmon made up about 20 percent of the diet of wolves on the coastal mainland and on Prince of Wales Island, 15 percent of the diet of wolves on Kupreanof Island and about 10 percent of the diet of Interior wolves. “We always thought it was the bears that capitalize on salmon, but this shows wolves do too,” Szepanski said. Szepanski found for some wolves on Prince of Wales Island, salmon was about 25 percent of the diet. The percentage was much higher for some wolves in northern Southeast, where deer and other terrestrial game are not abundant. These Yakutat-area wolves showed extremely high reliance on a marine diet, Szepanski said, comparable to coastal black and brown bears. She pointed out that marine-derived food could come in other forms: wolves could be eating eulachon (hooligan) during the seasonal runs of those fish, and could forage in the intertidal. Wolves have been documented hunting harbor seal pups as well, and seal bones are found in the scat of wolves in the Cordova and Yakutat areas. But these marine resources are not available for the Interior wolves. Szepanski looked at the variety in the wolves’ diet and found that Interior wolves’ ate mostly caribou and moose. For Southeast wolves, the diet is more varied; mostly deer, but including other herbivores – beaver, mountain goats and other small mammals. But the salmon is significant, especially for the pups. It’s long been known that wolves are opportunistic, but the varied diet and resourcefulness of Southeast wolves surprised Szepanski. “Southeast is a gold mine for unique research,” Szepanski said. “The thought has been that ‘wolves are wolves,’ but Southeast is a unique ecosystem, and the things they've done to adapt to this ecosystem are amazing.”
What a pity, hopefully not the fate of all wolves in that part of the world.
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3014717/first-indian-grey-wolf-be-spotted-bangladesh-decades-gets   *This image is copyright of its original author Angshuman Ukil-it was a day of torrential rain in the wild...it rained all night and it's still raining...in spite of that we decided not to abandon our morning exploration and proceeded through the slushy mud roads of the "aarang" catchment area of "mahanandi" river...a twenty minutes ride in the forest in a top covered gypsy with all sides open had left us completely drenched to our bones except our lenses...it never made a difference as we were all anxious to get back to the spot where we had left the pack last evening with the sun setting behind the rocky terrain of eastern ghats extending into the central indian planes...by looking at the activity of the pack last night i was kind of sure that they might not change their location soon...n the prediction was right, the playful pack of six was still there soaking in the monsoon rain enjoying their greens turn greener... indian wolf - canis lupus pallipes... if nature is kind enough, you never know what it has in store to offer!!!... this image is copyright protected, all rights reserved © 2019 with Bluebandwidth ... #bluebandwidthframes #indianwolf #mammalsofindia #wildlife #nature ... — at Chhattisgarh. |
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