*Editor’s Note* – While readers await Part VII, of the 7-part email series about the corruption and incompetence of introducing so-called red wolves into North Carolina, consider the evidence presented as to how the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service invented a wild dog species to protect under the Endangered Species Act at an overwhelming cost to the American Public. Job security I would guess. After all, isn’t this simply a reflection of all things GOVERNMENT?
Director Ashe,
I know these comments from a rather heated meeting of USFWS biologists in1989 are rather technical, so I have put in bold letters the key and shocking revelations regarding the cover up of the red wolf invention. Keep this quote from USFWS Zoologist/Biologist Ron Nowak in mind as you read.
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The USFWS’s $30,000,000.00 “Invention”
“In 1979, US Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Ronald Nowak carefully compared the skulls of grey wolves, and coyotes and noticed that the size and shape of the red wolf skull fell midway between that of the coyote and the grey wolf. Nowak’s interpretation of the fossil record further suggested to him that intermediate skulls like that of the red wolf skull first appeared in North America more than a million years ago, well before the first wolves or coyotes.” “Nowak concluded that the red wolf was not only a unique species but also the ancient ancestor of both the grey wolf and the coyote.”
“Nowak’s compelling idea one that persisted almost unchallenged for 10 years, throughout the early years of the Red Wolf Recovery Program.”
“But David Mech had a different theory about red wolves.” “In a 1970 book , Mech had proposed that the red wolf was neither species nor subspecies but a hybrid produced by interbreeding between the grey wolf and the coyote.”
“Into this heated conflict stepped David Mech, one of the world leading wolf experts. In 1989, at an Atlanta meeting of experts on wolf biology, Mech challenged his fellow researches to tell him how they could justify spending so much money rescuing the red wolf when it might not even be a species.”
“In 1989, two University of California biologist, Robert Wayne (of UCLA) and Susan Jenks (of UC Berkley), approached the US Fish and Wildlife Service and offered to settle the matter once and for all.” “Like Nowak, Wayne was an expert on the morphology and taxonomy of wolves and other canids.”
“The government agreed to fund the study, and the two biologist began examining DNA from red wolves, grey wolves and coyotes.”
“The two biologist tentatively and somewhat reluctantly concluded that the red wolf was most likely a hybrid of the grey wolf and the coyote.”
“Nowak and the other biologist at the US Fish and Wildlife Service could not believe what they were being told.” “Maybe, argued the government biologist, Wayne and Jenks had simply missed the DNA sequences that distinguished the red wolf.” Maybe they had not looked at enough DNA.”
“To put to rest any linger doubts, Wayne and other colleagues turned to special receptive regions of the DNA in the nucleus, called micro satellites.” “The results were the same, neither the samples of blood from living red wolves nor the samples from the skins of pre-1930s red wolves showed any unique sequences.” “By 1994, Wayne had found no evidence that the red wolf had ever been reproductively isolated from either grey wolves or coyotes.”
“The red wolf had to be a hybrid of the grey wolf and the coyote.”
“Wayne’s genetic data proved to be an embarrassment to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which had poured millions of dollars into the reintroduction program in the belief that the red wolf was a unique and endangered species.” “Yet the agency had acted in good faith.” “Until Wayne and his colleagues finished their research, the US Fish and Wildlife Service had no way of knowing that the red wolf was not a species.”
“Now the government agency was faced with a terrible dilemma.” “Wayne’s resulting threaten to discredit the wolf recovery program, strip the red wolf of its endangered status, and further undermine the increasingly battered public image of the federal Endangered Species Act.”
*** “To protect the red wolf, the US Fish and Wildlife Service began pressuring Wayne to avoid the word “Hybrid” in his research papers and to substitute the term “intergrade species” and other similar phrases.”
“In 1995, the US Department of the Interior issued a legal opinion that said that hybrids would be protected under the Endangered Species Act if Morphological evidence showed that the hybrids ere similar to the endangered “Pure” form.”
“In essence, if they looked like red wolves, they would be protected.”
“But the genetic data did not support that idea that a “Pure” form of the red wolf had ever existed, certainly not in the last 100 years.”
“In issuing this opinion, the agency excluded all the genetic evidence regarding the red wolf’s species status.” The only question was whether the red wolf looked different from the coyote and the grey wolf.”
“It did, and, therefore, until such time as the government acknowledges the genetic data, the red wolf will be considered a species.”
Director Ashe, the red wolf did not exist so it was “invented” by USFWS through omission of your own Government funded current science.
Ponder this over the weekend, as it is heavily tied into Part 7 due out on Monday.
Sincerely,
Jett Ferebee
