The real - and disappointing - nature of the red wolf ('Canis rufus')
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There are several 'dogs not barking' in the real nature of the red wolf (Canis rufus, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_wolf) of southeastern North America.
And these oversights offer insights into the values of nature conservation, the scientific method and - indeed - human psychology.
Everyone knows that
- all members of genus Canis can interbreed to produce fertile offspring (https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.150450 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackal%E2%80%93dog_hybrid and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982218311254 and https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30344120/ and https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337699681_Interspecific_Gene_Flow_Shaped_the_Evolution_of_the_Genus_Canis),
- the red wolf is probably just a hybrid between the wolf (Canis lupus) and the coyote (Canis latrans), and
- determined, extensive, and persistent - but largely unsuccessful - attempts have been made to conserve the red wolf as a wild animal, regardless of this dubious status as a species in its own right (https://ecosphere-documents-production-public.s3.amazonaws.com/sams/public_docs/species_nonpublish/12816.pdf).
However, what is not appreciated - because it is too dispiriting to contemplate - is that the red wolf is probably also profoundly hybridised with the domestic dog (Canis familiaris).
If it were accepted that the real nature of the red wolf is a three-way hybrid, among domestic dog, coyote, and wolf, then it might seem unjustifiable to spend so much time, energy, and money on the conservation of what cannot be argued to be a wild animal.
However, such acceptance has yet to arrive. And this 'blind spot' has amounted to cognitive dissonance, and a failure of scientific objectivity.
Dear readers, please consider:
How could the domestic dog not have been involved, in an important way, in the ancestry of the red wolf?
The answer is that it must be assumed to have been involved. There are two planks in my rationale, the first based on a logic of consistency, and the second pointing out a 'sin of omission'.
Firstly:
Taxonomists seem unanimous in the view that the wolf is the main ancestor of the domestic dog. This implies an acceptance - that should likewise be unanimous - that the introduction of the domestic dog to North America led to hybridisation with the wolf.
Because this introduction occurred at the end of the Pleistocene (https://www.perplexity.ai/search/when-was-the-domestic-dog-intr-KGnFbfn4TT6KfeOsMkAZuQ),
- there has been ample opportunity for deep genetic introgression (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introgression) of the domestic dog into the wolf in North America, and
- this would have been particularly relevant in the southeast of the continent, where the coyote was naturally absent (https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-was-the-original-natural-QqKxyvC_Rp6G84J1DDK8mA).
All-dark individuals, in populations of the wolf in both North America and Eurasia, particularly signify a history of hybridisation with the domestic dog (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_wolf and https://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/black-wolf-photographed-for-the-first-time-in-india-here-is-why-it-is-concerning-631944.html). Such individuals have occurred likewise in the red wolf, indicating that it, too, is introgressed.
Secondly:
The various genetic analyses of the red wolf have been 'deafeningly silent' on the question of how important the domestic dog has been in the ancestry of 'Canis rufus' (https://www.perplexity.ai/search/various-studies-have-been-publ-fqScDp3oQ0O7JkXBrzGlag).
This indicates cognitive dissonance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance), because
- everyone has assumed that the domestic dog is, in a sense, a non-wild form of mainly the wolf, and yet
- nobody has assumed that the red wolf may, by the same token, be mainly a feral form of the domestic dog.
Now, there is an additional aspect, which would be a 'nail in the coffin' for any notion that the red wolf deserves to be conserved as a wild animal.
This is that
- the main ancestor of the domestic dog may actually be a different, extinct species, which I have dubbed 'Canis rubronegrus' (https://www.inaturalist.org/posts/56803-an-extinct-canid-hiding-in-plain-sight-in-the-domestic-dog and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd5-TG8fpDE and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd5-TG8fpDE), and
- the wolf, to the degree that it has hybridised with the domestic dog, has been profoundly compromised, genetically, as a wild species.
Several aspects of the colouration of the red wolf indicate affinity with 'Canis rubronegrus', rather than either the wolf or the coyote. These include
- a pale pectoral flag (https://www.opb.org/article/2023/08/10/more-endangered-red-wolves-will-be-released-in-the-u-s-under-a-legal-settlement/ and https://www.ncpedia.org/media/red-wolf and https://aldf.org/article/animal-legal-defense-fund-adds-5000-to-reward-in-case-of-endangered-red-wolf-shooting/ and https://a-z-animals.com/animals/red-wolf/pictures/ and https://hotcore.info/act/kareff-072024p.html and https://hotcore.info/act/kareff-072024p.html),
- distinctly pale feet, except for the posterior surface of the hind foot, ventral to the hock/ankle (https://eng4301f10.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/red-wolf1.jpg and https://www.publicradioeast.org/pre-news/2013-02-11/red-wolf-deaths-prompt-investigation-and-state-court-case), and
- a pale ischial flag (https://hotcore.info/act/kareff-072024p.html and scroll in https://animalia.bio/red-wolf).
I suggest, therefore, that
- the red wolf is a three-way hybrid, too far from a wild animal to deserve the degree of conservation that has been attempted for the last half-century (https://www.perplexity.ai/search/when-did-attempts-begin-to-con-O3py1CUcTyCoNb2J_dTp9g), and
- attitudes to the red wolf exemplify a kind of subjectivity that detracts from scientific credibility.
Either way, attempts to bring the red wolf back from the brink may have been an expensive mistake.
It is one thing to accept that, in a genus as phylogenetically fluid as Canis, it is somewhat arbitrary whether any population qualifies as a particular species (as opposed to a hybrid).
However, it is another thing to pretend that a 'coywolf' is worth conserving, in a region of North America where one of the components, namely the coyote, was not even indigenous in the first place.
It is another thing again to 'shoehorn', into the concept of a valid species, an entity that is two-steps downgraded (latrans X lupus X lupus-familiaris) from an original species.
And it would be yet another grade of delusion, beyond the above three grades, to ignore that the hybridisation involved not two, but three original wild spp. (latrans X lupus X rubronegrus-familiaris).
Is the reality not that, in a region altered anthropogenically for ten millennia, and altered by Europeans for 500 years (https://www.perplexity.ai/search/when-did-europeans-first-settl-bxkgLugnQbGc.NulizD5lQ), any species of truly wild Canis is long-lost?
And is the likelihood not that, in continuing to avoid coming to terms with this loss, we conservationists are undermining our own effectiveness?
