Sightings in NY spark legislative push for increased DNA testing
By H. Rose Schneider, Times Union Staff Writer
ALBANY — Could wolves make their comeback in New York?
It’s a question that comes up every time a large, wolfish creature is spotted on a trail cam, or a migrating wolf is killed by a hunter upstate.
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“That’s the whole thing, we really don’t know,” said Kate Bartholomew, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter chair.
A bill reintroduced in the state legislature aims to find that out, she said. The bill would require any wild canids — a group including wolves and coyotes — weighing over 50 pounds that are killed to be DNA-tested by the state Department of Environmental Conservation to determine if the animal is, in fact, a wolf.
The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, was first introduced by the Manhattan Democrat last year. Protect the Adirondacks Executive Director Claudia Braymer said some changes have been made since then, the most significant being that hunters or trappers who kill a potential wolf would be anonymous.
“They may not have wanted to submit the samples voluntarily,” she said. “Wolves are endangered species, so technically they would have violated the Endangered Species Act.”
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The bill also no longer requires a moratorium on hunting in an area where a wolf is found, though it gives DEC discretion to “institute such measures consistent with its existing authority” to protect the animals.
Once prevalent in the northeast, wolves were extirpated from New York and much of the U.S. by 1900. But they have successfully been reintroduced in western parts of the country.
“The northeastern U.S. is one of the last regions in the U.S. to see a return of wolves,” Regan Downey, director of education at the Wolf Conservation Center in Westchester County, said. “Wolves can make it back to the Northeast.”
There is currently no evidence of a breeding wolf population in New York and a 1999 study found establishing one is unlikely, according to the DEC. In the past 20 years, only three wolves have been found in the state, the agency said. One was a captive animal that had escaped, the others were mistaken for coyotes and killed by hunters in 2001 in Saratoga County and in 2021 in Otsego County. The animal taken in 2021 was found to be endemic to the Great Lakes Region, where thousands of canids currently live.
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But advocacy groups backing the bill say current data collected by the state is sporadic, dependent on DNA testing during these specific incidents.
“We have seen wolves returning to the northeast,” said Tala DiBenedetto, staff attorney with the carnivore conservation program at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Unfortunately we don’t know the wolves are here until they’re dead.”
Groups like the Northeast Wolf Recovery Alliance, a coalition of wildlife advocacy groups, are collecting scat in places like Maine and the Adirondacks to check DNA, said Nadia Steinzor, northeast carnivore advocate for the Rewilding Institute, one of the participating groups. According to the DEC, the public is asked to send reports and photo evidence of wolves to their Bureau of Wildlife, and hunters are advised to contact DEC before killing canids over 4.5 feet long and over 50 pounds.
The other issue, advocates say, is that wolves may be easily mistaken for coyotes. A 2013 study found northeastern coyotes — widely believed to have arrived as a new species only a few decades after wolves were driven out — have a significant amount of wolf and even dog DNA.
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“Eastern coyotes are much, much larger than their western cousins,” Steinzor said. “They tend to be bigger and bulkier, and also wolfier.”
The bill would require the DEC to regularly submit a report on the status of wolves in the state, as well as update hunting and trapping education, reporting requirements and how to distinguish a wolf from a coyote. The DEC said it does offer identification tips, which are listed on its website.
Braymer said the legislation will be discussed on the state Assembly floor Wednesday. She’s hopeful it will move forward this year.
Photo at top: A taxidermist mounted the Cherry Valley wolf for the New York State Museum. Photo courtesy of New York State Museum
Keep wolves here. Keep them protected.
Why did farmers kill wolf in the past. They our the perfect killing machine. People seem to forget that. Everyone seems to forget the past. Do you and your family really want to be in the woods and half to deal with a pack of killers.
Quite frankly, you don’t know what you’re talking about. http://www.mainewolfcoalition.org
https://www.facebook.com/p/Maine-Wolf-Coalition-100064282555895/
Needed for the whole state to control wild deer population and turkey populations some areas of this game are nuisance and a threat will help to maintain a balance in nature the way it’s supposed to be will have to monitor all species but the time being there’s an overrun in certain areas and the wolves have to be recruited and respected thank you
They are not needed. Deer numbers in the Adirondacks are really low. Some areas of the state barely have a turkey population. Introduce wolves and you won’t have a turkey population. Not a good idea to have them. Especially is areas of the state with agriculture and farm animals.
Rob,
“They are not needed. Deer numbers in the Adirondacks are really low.”
Indeed – this illustrates why we DON’T have a breeding population of wolves here in the Park. There are also large areas of NYS where deer are overly-abundant. But does it mean we should kill grey wolves on sight like coyotes throughout NYS?
Grey wolves are a rarity here, and no one is suggesting reintroduction of the species in this bill. Scientific study of the coy-wolf and grey wolf population dynamics should note be feared. It is conceivable that continued hybridization of coyotes/wolves will continue as environmental conditions change (deer/moose/prey species increase) to favor larger predators – leading to larger hybrids that CAN utilize larger prey, yet have the behavior to co-exist with humans. My feeling is that studying and monitoring the genetics of coyote and wolf populations will elucidate any of these gradual hybridization changes, and we can react with more knowledge than just myth and dogma.
It can’t work until killing coyotes is banned. The people who hate wolves will just kill them and claim it’s a ‘mistake.’
So you think coyote hunting season should be abolished?? So the population can continue to grow?? Just so we can have wolves?? I don’t hunt coyotes anymore but doing away with the season should not be an option
Why is that??
Is there language in this bill that supports capture, sampling, and “radio tagging” of a suspect wolf that was noted based on a camera/visual sighting?
For those that have cameras, it is always a good idea to use something like a marked post in the frame to help with size estimates of animals. My problem is I don’t check my camera often enough to be much help.
Why did farmers kill wolf in the past. They our the perfect killing machine. People seem to forget that. Everyone seems to forget the past. Do you and your family really want to be in the woods and half to deal with a pack of killers.
Wolf attacks on humans in North America are considered very rare. Fewer than 30 attacks have been documented in the past 100 years, and only two fatalities have been directly attributed to healthy wolves. I would love to see them on my jaunts in the backcountry.
John,
Can you show data on serious wolf/human encounters where wolves and humans co-mingle around the world? Can you even show historical data? Indeed, in the past, wolves preyed on battlefield, starvation, and plague victims around the world. If you cannot show data to support your claims, there isn’t much sense in sensationalizing myth – assuming you don’t have another agenda.
I have explained many times in AE & AA, the more remote area’s in the Adirondack Park and along the spine of the Green Mountains, their are not enough early-successional (young forest) to promote the vegetation that supports prey species like deer, moose and snowshoe hare that prey species need to survive and populate. The whitetail deer higher density numbers are in agriculture and residental area’s where domestic animals exists, that will create conflicts with farmers and pet owners. Vermont’ legislature wants to do a study to reintroduce catamounts, but these politicians fail to recognize the lack of prey species in the more remote area’s do to the lack of a younger forest that provides food and cover resources. I noticed the politician sponsoring the bill is from Manhattan, I wonder if they have observed the type of vegetation that supports prey species that this majestic predator needs.
Leave them alone. Keep them here and protected
No need for them here. Don’t think at this time they are a huge issue. Increase the numbers and that will change. I’ll just keep doing what I’ve been doing going forward and hope that wolf reintroduction never materializes
3 wolves in 20 years and one of them was an escaped pet. This bill will help in identifying a 50 lb. or more “coyote” killed or trapped and determining if it was a coyote, wolf or a wolf hybrid. Maybe there are more wolves in New York that aren’t killed or seen or maybe not. This bill would collect the data to make a determination whether or not “wolf” legislation is needed. With anonymous reporting I’m all for it.
The statement that one of the three documented New York wolves was a captive animal that had escaped is completely unproven. NYSDEC has a long history of lying to the public about the identities of wolves killed in the state. Wolves are definitely present in the northeast. The closest documented wolf packs are within sixty miles of New York in Quebec. We documented scat from an eastern wolf collected in Maine in 2019. We presently have nearly two hundred scat samples collected in the northeast being analyzed in Quebec.