From TheConversation.com:
What’s the value of one animal? When a wild animal is found badly injured, the most humane option is often euthanasia to prevent further suffering. That’s what usually happens, and often for good reason. Even when the resources to rescue one animal are available, a rehabilitated animal brought back into the wild might be rejected by its group, or struggle to find food or escape predators. If it does survive, it may fail to reproduce, and leave no lasting mark on the population.
But every so often a single case comes along where one animal becomes evidence that intervention can do more than save a life on the spot. It can also change what we think is possible.
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Colorado gray wolf visit raises old question: What could species mean for New Mexico?
From SantaFeNewMexican.com:
Single Colorado male looking for mate. Potentially open to moving.
The announcement earlier this month that a gray wolf from Colorado had crossed into the Land of Enchantment has renewed discussions about the possibility the Mexican gray wolves’ northern neighbors could help solve the subspecies’ inbreeding problems.
But some warn the Mexican wolves’ Colorado counterparts could overwhelm the gene pool and cause regulatory challenges because of efforts to pull the gray wolf from the Endangered Species Act list.
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Wolves, long feared and reviled, may actually be lifesavers
From WashingtonPost.com:
A new line of research has revealed a surprising finding about how the presence of wolves helps keep people safe. The first clue was the flock of ravens.
Tom Gable spotted the birds while driving to work. He pulled over and saw what they were circling: a rib cage poking out of the fresh dusting of December snow, about 20 yards from the road. Climbing down an embankment, he found more carnage. Tufts of fur scattered like confetti. Trails of blood on the frozen river. And the disemboweled remains of a deer carcass.
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Bipartisan legislation introduced to halt running down wildlife with motorized vehicles on federal lands
From StGeorgeUtah.com:
In a bipartisan effort to curb extreme cruelty to wildlife on federal lands, Reps. Val Hoyle, D-Oregon, Mike Lawler, R-New York, Debbie Dingell, D-Michigan, and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pennsylvania, today introduced the Snowmobiles Aren’t Weapons Act, legislation to prohibit the intentional use of snowmobiles and other motor vehicles to injure and kill wolves, coyotes and other native animals on public lands across the United States.
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GOP lawmakers have administration ally to end predator species protections
From RollCall.com:
As congressional Republicans push to delist gray wolf and grizzly bear populations from Endangered Species Act protections, they now have an ally in the administration who has taken a skeptical view of the law designed for the purpose.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Director Brian Nesvik, who was confirmed in August, has advocated delisting the Greater Yellowstone grizzly bear and said both the bear and gray wolf populations have recovered.
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Africa’s rarest carnivore: the story of the first Ethiopian wolf ever captured, nursed and returned to the wild
From TheConversation.com:
What’s the value of one animal? When a wild animal is found badly injured, the most humane option is often euthanasia to prevent further suffering. That’s what usually happens, and often for good reason. Even when the resources to rescue one animal are available, a rehabilitated animal brought back into the wild might be rejected by its group, or struggle to find food or escape predators. If it does survive, it may fail to reproduce, and leave no lasting mark on the population.
But every so often a single case comes along where one animal becomes evidence that intervention can do more than save a life on the spot. It can also change what we think is possible.
Click here for the full story.
5,000-Year-Old Wolves Found on Remote [Swedish] Island Challenge Conventional Views of Domestication
From SciTechDaily.com:
Researchers have uncovered wolf remains dating back thousands of years on a small and remote island in the Baltic Sea. Because the island is naturally isolated, the animals could only have arrived there with human involvement.
The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by scientists from the Francis Crick Institute, Stockholm University, the University of Aberdeen, and the University of East Anglia, suggests that gray wolves may have been deliberately managed or controlled by prehistoric communities.
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Where did Colorado’s wolves spend time in December?
From SummitDaily.com:
While some of the wolves are part of Colorado’s four packs establishing territories in Pitkin, Jackson, Routt and Rio Blanco counties, others continue to search the landscape for mates and suitable food sources and habitat.
Largely, however, wolf exploration of Colorado remains within similar northern counties in December, according to the latest wolf activity map shared by Colorado Parks and Wildlife on Dec. 23.
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Oregon wolf cattle kills rise in 2025, but state lacks funding for proper payments
From CapitalPress.com:
PENDLETON, Ore. — Wolves have killed far more cattle this year in Oregon, but the state hasn’t allocated funding to properly compensate ranchers, an expert said. The Oregon Legislature could erase the shortfall during its upcoming 2026 short session via a proposed increase in the state’s lodging tax. “We need hats in Salem,” said John Williams, co-chairman of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association Wolf Committee.
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The year in wolves
From AlamosaCitizen.com:
[Idaho] Students hike, howl and collect DNA in Idaho wolf study
From UIdaho.edu:
At the edge of a mist-shrouded meadow near central Idaho’s Salmon River five student researchers stand knee deep in larkspur and Indian paintbrush as one of them uses a funnel to project a mock wolf howl into the silence around them. After a few tries, a wild wolf returns a howl from a forested mountain slope on the other side of the clearing.
U of I wolf researcher and doctoral student Peter Rebholz gives the students a thumbs up. The return howl confirms Rebholz’s hunch that wolves are nearby.
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