“Coywolves” & Centaurs

By Jim Beers

"Coywolves” a “new species”, my patoot! Relying on National Park Service bureaucrats and the academicians that rely on them for grants and fame for such absurdities is like relying on Al Sharpton and Elijah Muhammed for advice on race relations.

An animal “SPECIES” has, for centuries, been defined as a group of animals that interbreed freely and produce viable (i.e. able to reproduce) offspring. The offspring share the characteristics of each parent that they duly pass along to the succeeding generation.

Wolves freely interbreed with dogs. Dogs freely interbreed with wolves. Wolves and dogs freely interbreed with coyotes. Coyotes freely interbreed with wolves and dogs. I could add in dingoes and jackals here but let’s minimize confusion and focus on North America. It is merely a matter of preference to call them one species, subspecies of a larger group, or 3 separate species.

The definition of “species” has been politicized and parsed as a bureaucratic tool to utilize it in endangered species and native ecosystem laws and regulations designed to grow the federal government; expand federal bureaucratic power; stop all rural development and resource uses; and to gradually reduce and eliminate rural American’s rights, communities and US State authority. Thus the myths of “red” wolves; “Mexican” wolves; “timber” wolves; etc., that are in reality no more different species or subspecies than Dobermans, Wiemaraners and German Shepherds. The myths of species and subspecies have been further extended with the bureaucratic invention of quasi-legal entities below subspecies such as the silly “Population” further divided into the “Distinct Population” that is further divided (get out your microscope) into the “Distinct Population Segment” meaning (I kid you not) “Population Segments” on opposite sides of a legal boundary such as a County Line! The factual absurdity of this bureaucratic science is given a false patina of truth by a federal NPS employee in the state of Massachusetts as well as USFWS and NFS bureaucrats and the “scientists” they support on behalf of radical environmental and animal rights agendas.

Yes wolves always have interbred with dogs and coyotes. As government spreads and protects wolves everywhere, big surprise – “coywolves” increase. As government prohibits coyote and wolf control, and as they reduce the ability of private citizens to kill wolves and coyotes, big surprise – coyotes, wolves and “coywolves” infest human habitations and learn to live, eat and make puppies in every stray woodlot, “natural” jogging trail, dumpster, alley and “natural” park in urban America.

And our dogs today are poorly cared for (despite all the gushy TV ads about their needing a “family”) and often break loose as inadequate urban animal control and increasingly restrictive rural (gun use) controls impede citizen “controls” provide a steady influx of dogs to the nightly wolf/coyote bacchanalias. So the dogs mix with and are either eaten by or bred by wolves and coyotes and big surprise - dog genes contribute to the “coywolf” phenomenon. The only real differences being the dogs are usually vaccinated and healthy and the wolves and coyotes are carrying 30 or more infectious and deadly diseases, viruses, prions, and bacteria from Mad Cow and Foot-and Mouth to Chronic Wasting Disease, Anthrax, Plague, Brucellosis and Tapeworms; all of great danger to people, and wild and domestic animals.

As far as human danger goes, any of the 3; including any dog that has been “wild” for an extended period; is capable of attacking a person, especially children and old ladies. As far as behavioral modifications, the disgraceful government/radical protection given these animals plus the current densities of their populations and extent of the US they have been allowed to inhabit has far more to do with their “learning” and “adaption” than the fact that their aunt was a coyote and their father was a greyhound.

In sum “coywolves” are the animal equivalent of a New Orleans mulatto or a Chinese/Russian citizen of Formosa. If you believe that such distinctions justify race policies or expectations of ignorance or backwardness you probably swallow all this “coywolf” nonsense, believe in Centaurs and I feel sorry for you. If you want to defend these bureaucratic hammers intended to take our freedoms, I will oppose you with every fiber of my old body.

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Jim Beers is a retired US Fish and Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.  Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting. You can receive future articles by sending a request with your e-mail address to: jimbeers7@comcast.net