The red wolves of Galveston County

[Elderberry]

 Off the Kuff  Feb 23rd, 2019 by Charles Kuffner.

The coyotes Ron Wooten spotted on Galveston Island’s west end had eye-catching dark, reddish fur and long, slender builds. In the golden dusk of that July evening in 2013, about a dozen of the animals rested in what appeared to be a wetland dried by a seasonal drought.

These canids — mammals of the dog family — looked different. Most coyotes that inhabit this region have gray or pale-brown fur. And while coyotes typically scavenge alone or in pairs, these appeared to be traveling and interacting as a pack.

Wooten had a hunch he had stumbled onto something more important than satisfying his hobby as a wildlife photographer.

“They didn’t look like coyotes at all. I thought they actually looked like a big Great Dane or something like that,” Wooten said. “I looked at some images of red wolves and it kind of looked like they might have been leaning more towards red wolves than coyotes, so that’s when I started pursuing somebody to take a look at these animals.”

More: http://offthekuff.com/wp/?p=89340

[austingirl]

"They found that the Galveston Island animals were more similar to captive red wolves than to typical southeastern coyotes — one of Wooten’s samples was 70 percent red wolf, while the other was 40 percent red wolf."

Fascinating article.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

When I first started off working 45 years ago on a ranch in Wharton County, Texas(same general area as Galveston County), the oilfield hands had caught a red wolf and kept it in a cage.

I had never seen one, but recall it was quite different than a coyote.

May have been a crossbreed with a coyote, but it definitely was not extinct.