Surviving in the wild tough for hybrid animals
ALAN CROWELL, Staff Writer - MaineToday.com
KENTS HILL - Wildlife biologist Debra Davidson said releasing wolf dogs into
the wild usually spells doom for the animal and hinders efforts to track wolves
in the state.
Davidson is the Maine Wolf Project associate for the National Wildlife
Federation. She is studying wolves in Maine and said her work too often brings
her into contact with hybrid animals who either escape from their owners or are
released into the wild.
And although hybrids oftentimes are almost indistinguishable from pure wolves,
they have been raised as pets and do not know how to hunt, according to
Davidson.
In most cases, the animals starve to death, she said. Because hybrid animals
are not as shy of humans as wild wolves, they often gravitate to humans in
their search for food and may be run over or shot.
Last summer, Maine wardens trapped a white wolf-type animal in or near Baxter
State Park. The animal had been spotted several times hanging around homes or
approaching people in an apparent search for food.
"It was coming too close to people for what a wild wolf would do," Davidson
said.
But while its behavior made Davidson suspect it had been a pet, it looked
exactly like a wolf.
The determination was eventually made that it was either a hybrid animal or a
wolf that had been kept as a pet, because high levels of distemper antibodies
in its blood indicated the animal had received distemper shots.
Wild wolves are protected under federal laws, but under Maine law wolf dogs
must be put down if they bite a human or domestic animal.
Even if they do not bite an animal, captured wolf dogs are often euthanized
because they cannot be placed in a home.
Eventually, Davidson said the white wolf animal was taken to Loki Clan Wolf
Refuge in North Chatham, N.H.
Still, she said the sightings and capture of the animal added confusion to her
work determining whether Maine has a natural wolf population.
To date, she said, there is no evidence of a wild wolf population, although
several apparent wild wolves have been found in the state.
http://www.centralmaine.com/news/stories/010204wolfdog2.shtml