Genetic tests have revealed that an animal killed in a legal coyote hunt in Michigan's Calhoun County was actually a gray wolf, state officials say. But experts don't know how the animal got there in the first place.
Calhoun County is located in the southern half of Michigan's Lower Peninsula, where no gray wolves (Canis lupus) have been sighted for over a century. A population of around 630 gray wolves inhabits the state's Upper Peninsula, 250 miles (400 kilometers) away, and some wolves have occasionally been spotted in the northern half of the Lower Peninsula — roughly 130 miles (200 km) from Calhoun County.
"While rare, instances of wolves traversing large distances have been documented, including signs of wolves in recent decades in Michigan's Lower Peninsula," Brian Roell, a biologist and large carnivore specialist with the state's Department of Natural Resources (DNR), said in a statement.
Overpopulation in wild animals leads to the spread of disease to each other and also to people (75% of re-emergent human viruses over the last century have come from wild animal populations).
An overpopulation of predators also wipes out prey species and eventually causes a mass die-off of the predators themselves through starvation and competition.
Lastly, humans have wiped out most of the species that keep wild populations in check, like wolves. We created this issue, and sometimes we have to take on icky but necessary responsibilities for our actions as a species.
There is much more to this than what you can apparently see.