The recent killing of a wolf by a coyote bounty hunter in Utah again raises the question of field identification.
Oregon, with several established wolf packs but without a statewide bounty on coyotes, nevertheless faces the same identification issues.
The Utah case hasn’t been settled, but Brett Prettyman, outdoor writer for the Salt Lake Tribune filed this story Monday and shared it through the region’s Outdoor News Group.
By Brett Prettyman
Most of the time, wolf researcher Dan MacNulty can tell the difference between the apex predators and coyotes.
In his work at Yellowstone National Park, MacNulty routinely has to correct bystanders confused by the wild canines.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had people point and tell me to look at the wolf,” said MacNulty, an assistant professor of wildlife ecology at Utah State University. “I hate to rain on their parade and tell them it is a coyote.”
Telling the two animals apart — one protected by federal law, the other considered a varmint ripe for culling — can be difficult to the untrained eye, MacNulty says.
A coyote hunter who killed a 3-year-old female gray wolf Dec. 28 outside Beaver has said he couldn’t tell the difference.
More: http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregonian/bill_monroe/index.ssf/2015/01/post_146.html
Exposing the Big Game 
I find it hard to agree with Mike Jimenez sentiment that the wolf in Utah shot by the coyote hunter is a positive sign of wolf recovery.
To me, its more a sign of have far humanity has to go. Call me naive, I never understood that we were recovering wolves just so they could be served up for target practice.
BTW I thought hunters were only supposed to shoot if they were positive of their target? The assault rifles they generally coyote hunt with are generally equipped with high powered scopes to assist with long range shooting. I can tell the difference between a coyote and a wolf. And from quite a distance.
So much for coyote hunters being experienced outdoorsmen.
These people give new meaning to the phrase trigger happy. It doesn’t look that difficult to tell the difference – Ears straight up? Check. More slender, smaller body? Check. Shorter, narrower muzzle? Check. Color? Check. And if you can’t verify your target, don’t shoot. It’s just that they don’t care which one they kill. It is just pure, unadulterated bullshit.
A dead wolf is a sign of recovery? Yeah, right. They may be trying to expand their territories, but they rarely make it. As long as we have F&W making excuses for these scumbags, wolves will never recover fully, and that is what the scumbags want. If it is so difficult to tell the difference, then don’t allow legal hunting of either one, and prosecute poaching of both. Now we know wolves have/are traversing Utah, so that excuse cannot be used anymore. I’m sure there is a endless supply of creative excuses, all except doing what is right I suppose.
Also, people with ‘untrained eyes’ shouldn’t be hunting and shooting. Because wolves were intentionally eradicated and removed from this country, visitors to Yellowstone most likely have never seen a wolf or possibly haven’t even seen a coyote. I haven’t seen a wolf, but the coyotes there you’d never mistake for a wolf. We expect more from a hunter (or someone who calls themselves a hunter because it implies at least minimal skills) or someone carrying a gun!!!!! But humans can do whatever they want, skilled or not.
There is no justification for hunting anything. The fact that coyote killing is still acceptable, even among some animal people, is unconscionable, and disturbing. Coyotes are wonderful animals, who deserve our respect and love, but they have been so maligned by the livestock and hunting industries, it is disgusting.
I talked once with Dick Randall (a former coyote and general wildlife killer with Federal Animal Damage Control, now renamed “Wildlife Services”) and he admitted that he had done such terrible things to coyotes, wolves, prairie dogs, ferrets, foxes, mountain lions, and others, he “had trouble sleeping at night.” Fortunately, he went on to be a defender of all wild animals, by exposing what this horrendously evil federal agency was (and still is) doing. His photographs of mountain lion heads, coyotes in traps, coyote pups burned to death, are commonly seen on blogs and in publications. Before he died several years ago, he said,”I can’t undo what I did, but I will never stop fighting against who I worked for, and exposing what they do.”
This is the state of wildlife “control” in this world. Most of it is done to appease rural animal agriculture, which has been a staunch enemy of native wild animals since the 1880’s–and it isn’t changing, unless we get rid of the livestock/hunting industry on public lands.
http://www.foranimals.org
What makes people go to these bizarre lengths to kill? Had trouble sleeping at night, it’s too bad conscience didn’t kick in at the time.
Wolf or coyote, doesn’t matter. Either way the people who kill them are sick in the head.