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New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

economist.com

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Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#111

Post by beachstartup »

rwhitman wrote: post #40

In eastern Los Angeles, coyotes are everywhere , to the point where in some areas you run into them constantly day or night. They're stealthy - silent and very calculating. You can tell many of them are part domestic dog and they don't seem phased by proximity to people and appear to understand the workings of the city to some extent. I have seen the mentioned looking both ways when crossing roads, and also use of si…

there are also quite a few in west LA, near the santa monica mountains. same with mountain lions.

it's a real concern for people with pets that stay outdoors.

Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#112

Post by haylem »

PepeGomez wrote: post #104
chroma wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an accurate representation of my views. Though as I said, it's pretty low on the list of things that need fixing. One day –hopefully– humanity will have its shit together. Then the majority of suffering will be inflicted by (non-human) animals upon other animals. What do we do about that? I don't have an answer, but I'm pretty sure "let it continue" isn't it. To bring the discussion back to the present: I thin…

That doesn't make any sense. You treat a human being as one entity and a whole animal species as one entity. Almost nobody would see any problem with killing a particular wolf that repeatedly attacks people. Diseases that are part of erradication programs used to kill or cause lifelong disability to millions. Diseases that kill thousands could be recommended to vaccinate aginst for those at risk. There would hardly b…

Well there's quite a lot of research going into creating anti-venoms for stuff that kill only a (relative) few per year.

For instance, see: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-34513177 (which I may have come across from HN actually)

Note that they talk about 13 recorded deaths and none since the program began, but consider the effort involved.

And we do get pretty crazy about sharks and stuff when they kill less than a handful per year worldwide.

Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#113

Post by Amezarak »

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #91
Houshalter wrote: post #59

Hybridization is super interesting from an evolutionary perspective. Two populations can evolve down very different paths. Evolving all sorts of new genes and adaptions. Then hybridization mixes it all up. And over time, the best combination of genes from both species will be selected for. Creating something more fit than either of the original species.

Not so fast with the evolutionary fantasies. If they can breed and produce fertile offspring, are they really different species? Maybe we've got the definitions wrong somewhere.

> If they can breed and produce fertile offspring, are they really different species?

Species are defined more-or-less arbitrarily. It's essentially impossible to come up with a meaningful definition of "species" because of the nature of biology.

Imagine a gigantic tree, beginning with the first organism billions of years ago, with every living thing that ever existed as a node. Now, for the sake of the thought experiment, imagine that none of the lines ever died out.

There's no way to really consistently draw a line between one node and another and say "these are two different species." We pretty arbitrarily decide "well, these two sets are sufficiently different so let's call them two difference species." Like sibling commenters noted, sometimes hugely different species can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. Sometimes extremely similar (and related!) species can't breed. Or sometimes they can but never will except under laboratory conditions.

Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#114

Post by joeclark77 »

jrapdx3 wrote: post #30
joeclark77 wrote: post #23

Never heard of these being called "coywolf", but it's been known for a while that eastern coyotes are partly mixed with wolves. Good for them, too. Western coyotes are kind of wimpy. Now if we could breed the coyote with various bears, North America might start to rival Africa for impressive and fearsome predators.

"Western coyotes are kind of wimpy." Not around here. In Portland, Oregon, in the west hills In the last few weeks we've seen coyotes 2 to 3 times a week during daylight, curiously almost always around 3 PM. Until recently it was rare to see coyotes at all. They are fond of rifling through the contents of garbage cans. We now use extra layers of "security" to prevent coyotes getting into the trash. They are bold, fea…

Is it legal to shoot them there? (The coyotes, not the small kids...)

Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#115

Post by davidw »

eigenvector wrote: post #16
davidw wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Economist is worth the subscription. You know how you often read about something you know in the media and think ... "if they are getting this wrong, what else are they getting wrong?". I've noticed it happens quite a bit less with The Economist, and they write about a fairly broad range of subjects.

Quite the contrary, in writing concisely about a broad range of complex topics the Economist often passes off opinion or conjecture as fact and analysis. Compare their writing on the domestic politics of any country besides the US and UK to that country's own media and you will find it disappointingly shallow.

When I lived in Italy, my (Italian) wife and I actually almost always enjoyed their reporting on Italy, as it often got to the heart of the matter in a much more succinct manner than the local papers.

Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#116

Post by smegger001 »

gotchange wrote: post #72
vlehto wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Btw, have you ever considered the real reason why humans so eagerly bury/burn their dead? It's quite likely because we don't want natural predators to get used to the taste of human flesh. I live in a country where bears have been hunted for millenia. As a result I've slept about 1,5km away from known bear nest in the woods. It was scouting trip and none of us was really worried. Because we knew that by now, bears re…

> It's quite likely because we don't want natural predators to get used to the taste of human flesh. What do you suggest to dispose of human cadavers other than burying them because other methods like incineration and the likes are not as economic as the former method?

Soylent Green: The "miracle food"

Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#117

Post by crpatino »

bleakcabal wrote: post #82
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #13

One outcome of this interbreeding is that these animals have lost their fear of people, but they retain their predatory instincts, making them quite dangerous. There are coyotes in the northern part of Nova Scotia that have attacked lone hikers. A woman was killed, in fact a few years ago, and there have been numerous scary encounters in which the animal creeps closer and closer to a wary human, much like a predator…

Coyotes have only killed two people in North America in all of recorded history (and if you check recorded history for wolf attacks it goes back at least to the 1800s). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote_attacks_on_humans A 3 year old child in 1981 and a 19 year old woman in 2009. Both victims were alone at the time of their attacks. Coyotes killing humans is an exceedingly rare occurrence.

You cannot make sense of an emerging phenomenon by looking at century old records of superficially similar phenomena.

The 3 year old case sounds like an outlier, regular coyotes getting at an unprotected child.

The case of the 19 year old may be the canary on the coal mine. A fully grown adult should have scared off the coyotes, but that's not how it happened. We should be asking what was different in this case and why the expectations were not met.

Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#118

Post by brink2death »

abrookewood wrote: post #43
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #13

One outcome of this interbreeding is that these animals have lost their fear of people, but they retain their predatory instincts, making them quite dangerous. There are coyotes in the northern part of Nova Scotia that have attacked lone hikers. A woman was killed, in fact a few years ago, and there have been numerous scary encounters in which the animal creeps closer and closer to a wary human, much like a predator…

Well in Australia, death by horse (including falls) accounts for about 20 people a year and death by bee accounts for around 10 .. I don't think there's much to worry about from this hybrid.

Not to be disrespectful, but after reading your comment I couldn't help picturing something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCdbllHyX9o ;)

Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#119

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #17

I find these stories intriguing. Several have come together over the last decade or so, this one, the bear hunt in Florida because of too many bears, the Burmese Pythons in the Everglades eating everything, mountain lions living in many parts of the Bay Area near people, the rat explosion in NYC. All wildlife finding a niche in the urban and suburban world we've created and retaking territory originally ceded during…

Maybe introduce some coyotes into NYC to cut down on the rat population?

Re: New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America

#120

Post by coldcode »

Squarel wrote: post #65
PepeGomez wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Four million years is recent? We split from chimpanzees three to six million years ago.

Yes, it is recent. We are evolutionary newcomers.

I don't think chimps can breed with humans however.
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