Wolves in New England
Why aren't there wolves in New England?
Few animals capture the human imagination like wolves. They've been the vicious beasts that stalk our myths and stories, and a symbol for the quickly fading wilderness. They are a highly adapatable species that can inhabit habitats ranging from deserts to tundras, and act as keystone predators in many ecosystems. But despite their widespread, charismatic presence throughout North America and the rest of the world, wolves are suspiciously absent from New England, where they were once common. This begs the questions: why aren't they here, where did they go, and will New Enland ever here their haunting howls again?
“When I consider that the nobler animal have been exterminated here - the cougar, the panther, lynx, wolverine, wolf, bear, moose, dear, the beaver, the turkey and so forth and so forth, I cannot but feel as if I lived in a tamed and, as it were, emasculated country... Is it not a maimed and imperfect nature I am conversing with? ...thinking that I have here the entire poem, and then, to my chagrin, I hear that it is but an imperfect copy that I possess and have read, that my ancestors have torn out many of the first leaves and grandest passages, and mutilated it in many places.”
― Henry David Thoreau, The Journal, 1837-1861
Credit: Gary Kramer USFWS
Credit: Baccharus / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)
Credit:NPS/Jim Peaco
Credit: Gary Kramer USFWS
Internet Archive Book Images
Photo Credit: By Wolf_Kolmården.jpg: Daniel Mott from Stockholm, Swedenderivative work: Mariomassone - Wolf_Kolmården.jpg, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12423176
Photo Credit: L. David Mech mail, Bruce W. Christensen, Cheryl S. Asa, Margaret Callahan, Julie K. Young / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
General Info
Learn about wolves, their biology, populations, and current status within the ESA.
Hybridization
Learn about the hybridization of wolves and coyotes, coywolves, and the challegnes they pose to conservation and reintrodcution.
Learn More!
Find out about books, papers, and other sources where you can find out more about wolves in New England.
History
Learn about historical populations of wolves and their exitirpation from New England and Connecticut.
Return of the Wolves
Learn about the potential for wolves to recolonize or be reintroduced to New England.
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About
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Photo Credit: Steve Jurvetson from Los Altos, USA / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)
Photo Credit: By Retron - self-made now, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3865957
Photo Credit: Internet Archive Book Images
Photo Credit: NPS/Dan Stahler