Kenai Peninsula wolf explained

The Kenai Peninsula wolf (Canis lupus alces), also known as the Kenai Peninsula grey wolf,^[1] is an extinct subspecies of the gray wolf that lived on the Kenai Peninsula in southern Alaska.^[2]

Taxonomy

The subspecies was classified in 1941 as one of the four in Alaska by Edward Alphonso Goldman. It is recognized as a subspecies of Canis lupus in the taxonomic authority Mammal Species of the World (2005).

History

Wolves were common on the Peninsula before 1900, however, gold was discovered there in 1895. Miners, fearing rabies, commenced poisoning, hunting and trapping the wolves and by 1915 they had been extirpated.^{[3] [4] [5]} The Kenai Peninsula wolf was officially declared extinct in 1925.

Re-population of wolves from other areas onto the peninsula did not occur until the 1960s. It has been shown through DNA studies that, at minimum, the current population of wolves on the Kenai Peninsula mated with other Alaskan subspecies, as the structure of the current wolf population's DNA is similar to other mainland Alaskan subspecies.^{[6] [7]}

Description

The Kenai Peninsula wolf was dependent on the very large moose of the region (hence the trinomial alces, or moose) and Goldman proposed that its large size was an adaption to this.^{[8] [9]}

The Smithsonian Institution has a skull specimen of the Kenai Peninsula wolf, numbered as USNM 147471.^[10]

Notes and References

1. Book: Murray Wrobel . Elsevier's Dictionary of Mammals: In Latin, English, German, French and Italian . 2007 . Elsevier . 978-0-444-51877-4 . 68–.
2. A Signal for Independent Coastal and Continental histories among North American wolves . Molecular Ecology . 14 . 2005 . 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2005.02461.x. Weckworth. Byron V.. Talbot. Sandra. Sage. George K.. Person. David K.. Cook. Joseph. 4. 917–31. 15773925. 2005MolEc..14..917W . 12896064 .
3. Peterson, R.O. and J.D. Woolington. 1982. The apparent extirpation and reappearance of wolves on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska. Pages 334-344 in Harrington, F.H. and P.C. Paquet (eds.). Wolves of the world. Noyes Publications, Park Ridge, New Jersey. 474 pp
4. Palmer, L. J. 1938. Kenai Peninsula moose. Research Project Report, Bureau of Biological Survey-Sept.-Oct. 1938. Unpubl. report, Kenai National Wildlife Refuge files, 24 pp,typewritten
5. Effects of Increased Human Populations on. Wildlife Resources of the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska. Edward E. Bangs. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1982 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1035&context=usfwspubs
6. 3830728. Wolves of the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska. Rolf O. Peterson, James D. Woolington and Theodore N. Bailey. Wildlife Monographs. 88. 1984. 88 . 3–52.
7. Web site: Kenai Peninsula Wolf. Wolf Pack. 29 January 2014.
8. Goldman EA. 1944. Classification of wolves: part II. Pages 389–636 in Young SP, Goldman EA, editors. The wolves of North America. Washington, D.C.: The American Wildlife Institute.
9. L. David Mech, The Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species, The Natural History Press, 1970, Appendix A page 2
10. Web site: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History . Canis lupus alces Goldman, 1941 .