The Alexander Archipelago wolf (Canis lupus ligoni), also known as the Islands wolf,"Suit Filed to Stop Four Timber Sales on Largest National Forest". Sitnews.us (2008-07-11). Retrieved on 2012-12-31. is a subspecies of the gray wolf. The coastal wolves of southeast Alaska inhabit the area that includes the Alexander Archipelago, its islands, and a narrow strip of rugged coastline that is biologically isolated from the rest of North America by the Coast Mountains.
The Tongass National Forest comprises about 80% of the region.Tongass Land Management Plan FEIS, 2008. In 1993, a petition to list the Alexander Archipelago wolf as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act was lodged with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The agency decided in 1997 that listing was not warranted at that time.12-Month Finding on Petition to List the Alexander Archipelago Wolf under Provisions of the Endangered Species Act, August 28, 1997. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 15pp.Notice of the August 28, 1997 12-Month Finding, Federal Register Vol. 62, No. 171 September 4, 1997. p.46710. 2pp. In the interim, a multiagency conservation assessment of the species was published.Person, D.K. (Univ. Alaska); Kirchhoff, M. (ADF&G); van Ballenberghe, V. (USFS-FSL); Iverson, G.C. (USFS); Grossman, E. (USF&WS). 1996. "The Alexander Archipelago Wolf: A Conservation Assessment," Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-384. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. In 2011, a second petition to list the species as either threatened or endangered was filed with the Fish and Wildlife Service. It referenced scientific studies and other information that had arisen over the intervening 14 years."Petition To List The Alexander Archipelagowolf (Canis lupus ligoni) As Threatened Or Endangered Under The United States Endangered Species Act." Center for Biological Diversity and Greenpeace (August 10, 2011). In March 2014, in response to the petition, the agency made a positive initial finding that listing the species as threatened or endangered "may be warranted" and that it will prepare a formal status review.Federal Register (March 31, 2014) Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; 90-Day Finding on a Petition To List the Alexander Archipelago Wolf as Threatened or Endangered.
Taxonomy This wolf is recognized as a subspecies of Canis lupus in the taxonomic authority Mammal Species of the World (2005). Early taxonomists were able to determine that the Alexander Archipelago wolf was its own unique subspecies due to "common cranial characteristics". Taxonomists have suggested more recently that the species may have originated from another subspecies known as C. l. nubilus.MacDonald, S.O. and J.A. Cook. 2007. Mammals and amphibians of Southeast Alaska. The Museum of Southwestern Biology, Special Publication 8:1–191.
Studies using mitochondrial DNA have indicated that the wolves of coastal southeast Alaska are genetically distinct from inland gray wolves, reflecting a pattern also observed in other taxa. They show a phylogenetic relationship with extirpated wolves from the south (Oklahoma), indicating that these wolves are the last remains of a once widespread group that has been largely extirpated during the last century, and that the wolves of northern North America had originally expanded from southern refuges below the Wisconsin glaciation after the ice had melted at the end of the last glacial maximum. These findings call into question the taxonomic classification of C.l. nulibus proposed by Nowak. Another study found that the wolves of coastal British Columbia were genetically and ecologically distinct from the inland wolves, including other wolves from inland British Columbia. A study of the three coastal wolves indicated a close phylogenetic relationship across regions that are geographically and ecologically contiguous, and the study proposed that C. l. ligoni (Alexander Archipelago wolf), C. l. columbianus (British Columbia wolf), and C. l. crassodon (Vancouver Island wolf) should be recognized as a single subspecies of C. lupus.
In 2016, two studies compared the DNA sequences of 42,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms in North American gray wolves and found the coastal wolves to be genetically and phenotypically distinct from other wolves. They share the same habitat and prey species, and form one of the study's six identified ecotypes - a genetically and ecologically distinct population separated from other populations by their different types of habitat. The local adaptation of a wolf ecotype most likely reflects the wolf's preference to remain in the type of habitat that it was born into. Wolves that prey on fish and small deer in wet, coastal environments tend to be smaller than other wolves.
Physiology
Description Typically smaller than the other North American subspecies of gray wolf, the Alexander Archipelago wolf averages between . They are about long and tall at the shoulder. Their coat is generally a dark gray, with varying patterns of lighter shades."Wolves of the Rain Forest" – Wolf Song of Alaska . Alaska.net. Retrieved on 2012-12-31. Individuals from different islands in the archipelago have a propensity for different color phases, from pure black to combinations of black and white to a much brighter cinnamon color.
Dietary habits The primary prey of this species is the Sitka black-tailed deer, which comprises as much as 90% of an individual's diet. The next-closest consumed species, less than 10%, is the North American beaver. The average Alexander Archipelago wolf eats an estimated 26 deer per year. This habit of feeding almost entirely on a single species is peculiar to this wolf, and is not seen in other North American wolf species.Natalie G. Dawson, Stephen O. MacDonald and Joseph A. Cook (2007) 2007 endemics AA.pdf "Endemic Mammals of the Alexander Archipelago". Southeast Alaska Conservation Assessment. Southeast Alaska Conservation Assessment – Chapter 6.7 This subspecies consumes large amounts of salmon in addition to deer, beaver, mountain goat, and small mammals. Salmon make up about 10-25% of their diet. Salmon are attributed with allowing the subspecies to have one of the higher pup survivorship rates (90%) of the species.Riley Woodford (November 2004) "Alaska's Salmon-Eating Wolves". Alaska Fish & Wildlife News
Range, population, and repopulation
Range The range of C. lupus ligoni covers all of southeastern Alaska (the Alaskan panhandle) except the Admiralty, Baranof, and Chichagof Islands.
A population survey (from a mid-1990s radio-collar study) produced a region-wide estimate of 750 to 1,100 wolves, with the number of wolves in the autumn of 1994 (before trapping season) estimated to be 908. That study was conducted on Prince of Wales Island, with the region-wide estimate being based on an extrapolation on the varying habitat capability for prey. The Prince of Wales population was estimated to be 300–350.
From Environment New Jersey: "The Alexander Archipelago wolf is one of the world's rarest wolf subspecies, and the islands that make up the Tongass National Forest are its only home in the United States. They're severely threatened. In 2014, the wolves' population fell from 200 to around 60 wolves -- a drop of roughly 70 percent in just one year."John Platt, "Alaska's Rare Alexander Archipelago Wolves Nearly Wiped Out in 1 Year," Scientific American, June 11, 2015
During field work in the summer of 2010, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) determined that Prince of Wales Island's wolf population had declined sharply; the ADFG was unable to collect enough wolf scats to make a population estimate based on DNA. Reportedly, "only a 'small fraction' of the expected number of scats" were found during this effort, in which a number of previously known denning sites were checked, and transects were checked over an extensive part of the island.Comments of Greenpeace and others on the draft Tongass 5-Year Plan, fs.fed.us (November 5, 2010), citing a pers. comm. with ADF&G's Dave Person. In a regulatory proposal, given at the Alaska Board of Game's November 2010 meeting to help protect the species, ADFG estimated the island's wolf population to be only 150,See: Proposal 18 in the Alaska Board Of Game's Fall 2010 Proposal Book for the Southeast Region. http://www.boards.adfg.state.ak.us/gameinfo/meetinfo/2010-2011/southeast/crass-final9-7-10.pdf down by over 50% of the estimated 300–350 wolves from the 1990s radio-collar survey.
Reproduction In southeastern Alaska, wolf pups are usually born during the final two weeks of April. Dens are usually constructed 4–5 weeks prior to the birth. Den sites vary by a number of factors, such as the pack in question's home range and available topography; possibilities include burrows dug between the roots of large trees, caves, cliff-base crevices and rock formations, abandoned and dry beaver dams, or other uninhabited animal burrows—which the wolves will further excavate and enlarge.
History The Alexander Archipelago wolf first arrived in Alaska sometime between 7,000 and 8,000 years ago, after the end of the Wisconsin glaciation period. The species was likely following the migration of the Sitka deer as they traveled north because of geographical and climate change in the area. The first observation of concern for the possible instability of the Alexander Archipelago wolf population was by a USDA Forest Service-sponsored interagency committee. This concern came about because of the extensive logging being conducted in the region's forest, under the Tongass Land Management Plan.U.S. Forest Service. 1979. Tongass Land Management Plan. (See also later revisions.)
Endangered Species Act petition – 1993 to 1997
A petition was presented to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in December 1993 by the Biodiversity Legal Foundation and an independent biologist, requesting the Alexander Archipelago wolf to be listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The agency published a positive 90-day finding in the Federal Register on May 20, 1994, but near the end of the year, issued another finding that a "listing is not warranted at this time", but that if the logging was not reduced or reservation areas created, the "long-term viability of the Alexander Archipelago wolf is seriously imperiled."Petition to List the Alexander Archipelago wolf under Provision of the Endangered Species Act, 12-Month Finding. US Fish & Wildlife Service, Dec. 8, 1994; signature date Feb. 15, 1995. To better assess the status of the species, the FWS ordered a conservation assessment to be made in terms of specific data of the species and its viability for the future.
After the assessment was completed, more studies were undertaken to understand exactly how the Alexander Archipelago wolf fits into the food chain and what effect extensive logging would cause. After study that, between 1995 and 2045, the population of the Alexander Archipelago wolf was surmised to "decline as much as 25%", along with Sitka deer population declining by 28% within the same time.
In 1994, the FWS issued a memo stating, "not protecting the wolf would be the 'least controversial option'". This was in regards to the logging companies and lobbyists that opposed restrictions on logging in the area, which protecting the Alexander Archipelago wolf would create. In 1997, the petition was denied due to the findings that wolves in southeast Alaska would not be in danger of extinction within the foreseeable future.