Sounds in the Night

If you have ever been camping at night, you have probably heard strange sounds from the darkness. The darkness tends to make sounds a bit spookier and also makes it more difficult to identify and get a sense of the distance of the animal making the sounds.

A reader named Joe emailed that he has been researching predators in New Jersey. He has recorded some night sounds while camping at Brendan Byrne State Forest (formerly the Lebanon State Forest).

 Listen to a short clip of what he heard

His guess is that it is either a pack of wild dogs or coyotes. Readers of this blog know that we frequently get reports of wolves and even mountain lions in New Jersey. Neither wolves nor mountain lions have ever been confirmed in our state. But we do have lots of coyotes.  

Listen to coyote pack howling 

Wolves bark, but in a very different way from dogs. Their barking sound is described as “short and low-pitched” or “guttural and coarse”.

So, what did Joe hear? I asked two wildlife biologists. They agreed that a pack of wild dogs or coyotes is a good guess. Dog packs are not common in NJ, particularly in any State Forests. I asked whether it might be the sound of coywolves. 

coywolf hybrid

In New Jersey, "coywolf" is a term often used to describe eastern coyotes, which are coyotes with some wolf ancestry. These animals are not a distinct species but rather a hybrid form of the coyote that is evolving in the northeastern United States. While sometimes called coywolves, they are more accurately referred to as eastern coyotes.

Both biologists said that the coywolf does exist here, but it would take a DNA test to determine that identification. 

Coywolf studies at Pepperdine University concluded that coyote DNA dominates, but the animal is also 10 percent dog and 25 percent wolf.

What do you think Joe heard and recorded? Considering that Brendan T. Byrne State Forest is in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, does anyone think it might have been the Jersey Devil?

Coyote, Dog, Coywolf, Wolf?

 

There have been a lot of sightings and identification emails, comments and subsequent posts lately. I have been posting a number of them when there are accompanying photos or video as a kind of identification quiz for readers.

Frank emailed me a link to his photos and a video of where these tracks were found a bit outside NJ in Willows Park, Radnor Twp, Delaware County, PA.

He notes that there is a very narrow toepad print that seems to have digits pointing outward. That makes him think gray wolf. There were no other tracks at all on the trail or area nearby. He said that he has seen similar tracks in Bass River State Forest. 

Although gray wolves once were in this area, they were cleared out by trappers and hunters and the last known gray in Pennsylvania died in 1892. To see wolves outdoors in Pennsylvania, I think you would need to go to the Wolf Sanctuary of Pennsylvania in Lititz.

But might this be a coywolf or coyote? Do you think it is just someone's dog wandering on its own?

Tracking a Coywolf

Eastern coyotes (coywolf) differ from their western counterparts
with a larger average size and various color phases,
 including blonde and black. Photo via state.nj.us/dep/fgw/

I have received more sightings and meals about wildlife identification by tracks this summer. (Maybe because people have been eager to get outside after the at-home kind of year that 2020 was due to the pandemic.) Though I have studied tracking for many years, I claim no expertise and still turn to references at times.

Recently, Frank sent me two photos and asked about identifying a coywolf. This hybrid of a coyote and wolf is also known as the Eastern coyote. 

I was running on the Yellow Poppy Allen Trail at Bass River State Forest and came across the tracks in the attached pictures. My finger is about 4' from the tip the the knuckle on my hand, and my sunglasses in another photo (placed on ground in between front and back paw tracks) are about 6" across.

I showed the photos to a ranger after completing my hike, and he seemed to think it was Coyote because of the fat toe pad as compared to a wolf track with more narrow toe pad.

Ironically, after seeing a photo of a Coywolf I realized I saw one crossing Magnolia Rd in Pemberton where it approaches the circle at Route 72 within the past 2 years. I remember being totally puzzled by the black and dark orange animal crossing, looking sort of like a dog but with significant hackles on its shoulders.

Distinguishing a coywolf from a coyote, wolf or even a domestic dog by tracks is difficult. An actual sighting helps (see below). Size isn't always helpful as there is a wide variety of canine track sizes, both domestic and wild. Confirmation is usually based on DNA (from scat or blood)

The wild canid family in the continental US consists of (from smallest to largest) grey foxes, red foxes, Western coyotes, Eastern coyotes (coywolves), and the rarer (and not found in NJ) red wolves, Mexican wolves and gray wolves. 

Wild canine tracks can range in size from 1.5 inches in length up to 5.5 inches (not including toenails/claws). Of course, domestic canines overlap those sizes too.

When I took a tracking class, I learned that the surface (substrate) an animal is walking on (mud, snow, packed dirt, sand etc.) changes the look of an animal’s tracks. Tracks also change as time passes, often getting larger as well as degrading. 

When an animal is walking on a softer or more slippery substrate (like mud or snow) it will spread its toes to help it balance. So tracks on a solid, harder ground will (usually) appear more accurately compact.  

Since it is almost impossible to distinguish a large dog from a wolf from a single track, it is recommended that you look at the pattern of the trail. Dogs tend to have rather erratic walks (perhaps not if leashed, but then you'd also see human tracks). They are not stalking. Their hind foot tracks seldom register within their forefoot tracks.  

A wild canine typically has a direct registration walk. Wolves tend to walk more directly when traveling, so their trails show that the hindfoot is placed within or directly in front of the forefoot. Wolves will also approach strangers and strange objects cautiously and tracks may show them circling widely to investigate rather than approaching directly.

coywolf (Eastern coyote) 4 inches

The photo above is a coywolf track that was confirmed (by DNA). It is about 4 inches long.

Since a coywolf is somewhere between a coyote and wolf, they are identified by characteristics between the two. For example, a coyote has a narrower face and a smaller nose pad than a wolf. The coyote has taller and pointed ears compared to a wolf's more rounded ones.

As with tracks, their physical size varies. Adult coyotes top out at around 50 pounds, while wolves are 70-150 pounds. We could expect an adult coywolf to be between the two ranges.

On clear tracks (like the one above), all the claws of a wolf are seen. For coyotes, the outer ones may not show.

Some studies define the “coywolf” population in the northeastern United States and eastern Canada that originated through hybridization between Canis lycaon (Eastern Wolf) and Canis latrans (Coyote), but maintain that it is now genetically uniform and only minimally influenced by either parental species. An alternative interpretation of available data is that this northeastern Coyote population is genetically diverse, substantially more Coyote than Eastern Wolf in its genetic composition, and part of a larger population of Coyotes that interbreeds with a hybrid Coyote/Eastern Wolf population in southern Ontario and western Coyotes in western New York and Pennsylvania.

So did Frank see coywolf tracks? As stated, hard to tell. At 4 inches, that is a good-sized canid. The track appears to be direct registration. Might it be a bog dog? Possibly. And because owners often let dogs run free in the woods, you might not see human tracks nearby. (see this side by side comparison of a dog and coyote - hard to tell)

Frank also asked about reporting a sighting. There is a way to do that at state.nj.us/dep/fgw/ensp/rprtform.htm but it is more for endangered and threatened species and since a coywolf identification just from tracks is so difficult, I doubt that it would be investigated or recorded.

See Also

wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Mammals/Gray-Wolf/Identification
Coyotes in NJ  state.nj.us/dep/fgw/coyote_info.htm

Have You Seen a Coywolf in New Jersey?

A "coywolf"                                  Photo: forestwander.com via nj,com

If you have heard that New Jersey has coywolves living here, it's true.  But the name coywolf is a new one tagged onto the hybrid animal that is the eastern coyote. The species is not a "coy" (as in shy) wolf, but a hybrid that is mostly coyote. Researchers say they exist in the millions throughout the Northeast, including in NJ.

This cross between a coyote and a wolf used to be considered an eastern coyote, but recent research shows the hybrid name is a more accurate descriptor. Eastern wolves interbred with western coyotes when deforestation and hunting threatened their population. Though coyotes in any form were once unknown in our state, they have spread statewide in the past decade. Their DNA is 65% coyote, 10% dog and 25% wolf, the Economist reported.

The coywolf is about twice the size of a coyote, with larger jaws and bigger muscles that allow it to kill larger prey, such as deer. But coywolves eat pumpkins, watermelons and other garden produce, as well as discarded food, rodents and other small mammals including squirrels and pets.

As with other coyotes, the coywolf has adapted very well to suburban and urban environments. (It is estimated that at least 20 live in New York City.) Urban/suburban habitats offer easy access to trash and easy hunting in areas without underbrush and cover (such as parks, trails and lawns) so that the coywolf needs only half the territory it would require in the countryside. Railway corridors make travel fast and easy. They tend to be more nocturnal in populated areas.

There is some debate in the science community as to whether the coywolf actually has evolved into a distinct species, but the name has traction.  NJ.com has called them "New Jersey's apex predator" and  they were tagged as the new "superpredators" by Field and Stream magazine.