Canid controversy enters letter-writing phase

By Mike Lynch

A coalition of state and national wildlife and environmental organizations is urging the state Department of Environmental Conservation to do more to protect wolves entering this state. 

In a letter to Commissioner Basil Seggos, the coalition referred to a DNA test that determined a canid shot in Central New York last December was 98% wolf. Results of that test were released in late July by Joe Butera, of the Northeast Ecological Recovery Society, who obtained the tissue sample and sent it to the Trent University lab. 

The letter, signed by 38 individuals representing state and national organizations, asks for four actions from the DEC. 

The group wants the DEC to acknowledge the killing of the wolf in Otsego County and the potential additional ones could return to the state. 

It asks the DEC to keep wolves on the state’s endangered species list and to enforce the law prohibiting the killing of endangered animals.  

It wants the department to ban or restrict eastern coyote hunting and to educate hunters about the differences between wolves and coyotes. Differentiating a wolf from an eastern coyote can be complicated because eastern coyotes are known to have significant amounts of wolf genes. 

Eastern coyotes are larger than their western counterparts and can weigh up to 50 pounds or so. 

Wildlife advocates have said coyote…