Here is some more interesting facts about wolves:

These two definitions come from Britannica sample search.

wolf:Wild doglike carnivore of the family Canidae. The gray, or timber, wolf(Canis lupus) is the best know species. An inhabitant of both open and timbered areas, the graf wolf once was found throughout North America and Eurasia. It has been eliminated from much of its range, however, and is now found primarliy in Asia and in NOrth America from Alaska to the northern plains states. Its numbers are dwindling in many areas. In 1995 wolves were reintroduced in wilderness areas of the northern Rocky Mountains.

dire wolf:(Canis dirus), wolf that existed during the Pleistocene Epoch (1,600,000 to 10,000 years ago. It is probably the most common mammalian species to be found preserved in the La Brea Tar Pits in southern California. The dire wolf differed from the modern wolf in several ways: it was larger and it had a more massive skull, a smaller brain, and relatively light limbs. It is probable that Canis dirus was less intelligent than are modern wolves. The species was considerably widespread, and skeletal remains have been found in Florida, the Mississippi Valey, and the Valley of Mexico.

There is a education and research foundation that educates people about wolves. The name of the organization is called The Wildlife Education and Research Foundation or (WERF). WERF is a non-profit corporation that is incorporated in the State of New Mexico in the year of 1987. It edcuates the public about the wildlife that is remaining, with direct emphasis on threatened and endangered species on the North American Continent. This organization immediate goal is to find a USDA approval and licensing of a viaccine for rabies that invovles wolves and Wolf Hybrids. If a Wolf Hybrid or a wolf is involved in a incident in biting or scratching, this animal must be confiscated, and the animal's brain must be submitted for a analysis to determine if the animal is carrying the disease or has been exposed to a animal that is infected with rabies.

There is about 1.6 million privately owned wolves and Wolf Hybrids in the USA and that number is estimated. These animals MUST be protected by someones help. The possesision of hybrids are illegal to have in a dozen of states. Other states have restrictions on their ownership. The reason that is for the lack of a USDA approved rabies vaccine. To make the public health departments and other governmental official happy is that the wolves and Wolf Hybrids are protected by the canine rabies vaccines. To complete the testing, specific scientic protocal set forth in the Code of Federal Regulations.

The program cost a lot of $money$ and requires 2 or more years to complete. The funding for WERF come from donations from people that care about wolves and Wolf Hybrids. Your animals and the 1.6 million Wolf Hybrids and wolves depend on this $money$ you donate to help this animals to survive.

The WERF obtains many questions about the vaccines of rabies dilemma. It affects Wolf Hybirds and wolves. The approval and the development of any vaccine is in the process of being approved and in use. The scientific studies of vaccines are necessary for the approval of the vaccines or for extra label use.

Rabies is a fatal disease in all instances if the symptoms of the illness are observalble. Rabies is acquired by a bite or through an open wound which was contained by the salvia of a rabid animal. In the median interval of rabies is a sign of a date of death in 3 days in cats and dogs. The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, GA stated that 98% of rabies in North America today will be found in skunks, raccoons, bats, or foxes. Wolves will catch the rabies virus from foxes or skunks.

The symptoms of rabies is so variable, a lot of many veterinarians have a difficult time finding the disease. Animals that have rabies have very specific signs of rabies. Such as jaw and limb paralysis, aggressiveness, to nonspecific signs such as fever, lethargy, lack of coordination(ataxia), anorexia, excessive salivation, and hyperactivity.

Raccoons and skunks represent large part of this country with the rabies disease. Rabies epidemics have been studied in the grey fox, coyotes, and feral dogs. Two documented vaccine failures were reported in 1993 involving a dog and cat. Also, involving a vaccinated Wolf Hybrid that contracted rabies which this have benn due to vaccine failure. A question has come up to produce a vaccine to protect the Wolf Hybrids. This has gotten publicity throughout the country due to the fact that the animal involved was a Wolf Hybrid. No licensed vaccine has been approved by the USDA for the Wolf Hybrids.

A lot of people wanted to know why is the rabies vaccine was developed and approved for dogs and not be effective on wolves and Wolf Hybrids. This situation has been approached and continues to be argued. WERF began a campaign to argue this issue in 1987. While WERF was doing this, they were conducting a preliminary titer level tests and developing statistical information on Wolf Hybrid population in the USA. A lot of the scientists and representatives of the government agreed the existing vaccines would most likely provide protectivity. This might not immunologically proven use before the governmental approval for the use could be given.

WERF argued about the vaccine for the wolves and Wolf Hybrids for years. WERF tried to convince owners and breeders that this problem is very serious and real. This testing may be done in order to protect and save the animals sooner or later. It has to be SOONER that later. Wolf Hybrids would be subject to confiscation, decapitation and euthanasia. Euthanasia means killing to prevent or end suffering. Owners opposed to this warning. Despite of the information the owners received from the governmental agenices, they felt they were safe and that the argument was an over-reaction. WERF were seeing more reports of canines put down to sleep and decapitated because that an animal control officer thought it might have been a Wolf Hybrid in the last five years. A lot of regular dogs have lost their lives as a result to this.

Several individuals formed an organization called Rabies Approval Fund Total (RAFT). This organizations primary function is to revolve around taxonomic issues and a reclassification of nomenclature. This was sent for in the 1993 edition of Mammal Species of the World. WERF agreed with RAFT for doing this participation. This is their specific argument that it seems logical that already existing vaccines that are species specific instead of breed specific.

Veterinarians and owners argued that question of a USDA approval for a rabies vaccine for wolves and Wolf Hybrids. This is just a political issue that the existing dog vaccines that would protect immunity required to the wolf and Wolf Hybrid. A large degree of politics exist in this argument. WERF has been involved in this issue for nearly a decade. WERF has dealth with scientists, governmental officials, laboratory researchers and manufactures. There might be a good reason for the insistence on the challenge testing.

No profession and no issue is immune to political assault. It might be without proper seriousness to suppose without knowing that politics is the enitre platform of debate in this issue. Also, to assume that taxonomic classification changes will settle any of the scientific questions. Dr. Robert B. Miller emphasized the problem when he asked, "We realize that Mammal Species of the World has changed the taxonomic nomenclature of the (entire) canine species; but what if they change it back next year?" at the meeting on October 6, 1994. This question is on eof the reasons that WERF stayed out of the arguments of taxonomic currently being presented. WERF has proceeded with these contentions in the past and through experience. WERF understands the logic that has often no correlation with scientif evidence and is concerned about the public health and safety as the governmental and scientific agencies set up to protect us.

WERF cannot emphazie the regulations set forth in the Code of Federal Regulations that may seem unneccessary to many people. They(Code of Federal Regulations) are there for a reason and been in place for more than a decade. The reason is??????? YOUR health and safety.

Wolves consume 85%-100% of their kill. Here are 2 more addresses that you can write to for more information about wolf preservation:

Montana Wildnerness Associaton, 43 Woodland Park #9, Kalispell, MT 59901

Alliance for the Wild Rockie, P O Box 8731, Missoula, MT 59807

Biologists believe wolves developed from primitive carnivores known as miacids. Miacids were gopher-sided to dog sized and were located in the Lower Territory 52 million years ago. Miacids evolved from the Cretaceous insectivores.

One of the wolf's ancestors had the Tomarctus which is a fifth toe on the hind leg which became a vestigial and became evidence by the dew claw on both wolves and domestic dogs.

The domestic dog has been reclassified as a new subspecies of wolf, the Canis lupus familiaris.

The above information and the chart below is from the The Wolf Almanac by Robert H. Busch.

Scientific Classification of Wolves

Type	Latin Meaning
Kingdom	Amialia(all aminals)
Phylum	Chordata(animals with notochords)
Subphylum	Vertebrata(aminals wtih a skeleton of bone or cartilage)
Class	Mammalia(mammals)
Subclass	Eutheria(placental mammals)
Order	Carnivora(carnivores)
Family	Canidae(dog family)
Genus	Canis(dogs)
Species	lupus(gray wolf)

Background provided by: