DNA from extinct red wolves lives on in some mysterious Texas coyotes
The find raises questions of whether conservation efforts should preserve DNA, not just species
Mysterious red-coated canids in Texas are stirring debate over how genetic diversity should be preserved.
“I thought they were some strange looking coyotes,” wildlife biologist Ron Wooten says of the canids on Galveston Island, where Wooten works. But DNA evidence suggests the large canids might be descendants of red wolves, a species declared in 1980 to be extinct in the wild.
A small population of red wolves from a captive breeding program lives in a carefully monitored conservation area in North Carolina. But those wolves have had no contact with other canids, including those in Texas. So maybe, Wooten thought, red wolves never actually went extinct in the wild. He made it his mission to find out. “There was no way I could let this go,” he says.