Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Outdoors blog

First wolf in 80 years apparently roams Grand Canyon

This canine, apparently a gray wolf, has been seen around the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. (Center for Biological Diversity)
This canine, apparently a gray wolf, has been seen around the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. (Center for Biological Diversity)

ENDANGERED SPECIES -- A tourist photograph of a radio-collared canine is thought to be the first gray wolf to grace the North Rim of the Grand Canyon since the 1940s.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was sending a team to try capturing the animal in order to verify its species and origin, although federal biologists are assuming it is a wolf unless otherwise determined, a spokeswoman told Reuters.

The agency later issued a statement saying a collared "wolf-like" animal had repeatedly been observed and photographed on U.S. forest land just north of Grand Canyon National Park, and that wildlife officials were "working to confirm whether the animal is a wolf or wolf-dog hybrid."

Several photos of the animal were taken over the weekend by a Grand Canyon park visitor who shared them with conservation activists and park staff, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, which first made the findings public.

A few wolves that have been captured and radio-collared in states such as Washington, Idaho and Oregon have been shown to launch out on their own for hundreds and even thousands of miles.  Sometimes the radio transmitters fail or run out of battery power so no signal can be received to confirm the wolf's identity. 

Any wolf roaming northcentral Arizona would be protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. If confirmed to be a western gray wolf, it would presumably have ventured hundreds of miles south from the Northern Rockies, where the animals were reintroduced in the 1990s and are now estimated to number nearly 1,700.



Rich Landers
Rich Landers joined The Spokesman-Review in 1977. He is the Outdoors editor for the Sports Department writing and photographing stories about hiking, hunting, fishing, boating, conservation, nature and wildlife and related topics.

Follow Rich online:




Go to the full Outdoors page