New species combining wolf, coyote, and dog emerges in eastern North America
One outcome of this interbreeding is that these animals have lost their fear of people, but they retain their predatory instincts, making them quite dangerous.There are coyotes in the northern part of Nova Scotia that have attacked lone hikers. A woman was killed, in fact a few years ago, and there have been numerous scary encounters in which the animal creeps closer and closer to a wary human, much like a predator approaching its prey.The coyotes in this part of Canada are said to have interbred with dogs; it's not clear that these are the wolf-coyote-dog hybrids described in the article, but anyway these animals harassing hikers have been hanging out in the forested national park, as wolves would do.Park rangers have tried to control the population, with varying results. Simply shooting a few of the coyotes actually can backfire; it seems to stimulate larger litters to replenish the population.We might have to return to the pioneer approach of shooting them on sight, and hope this instills a healthy fear of humans as they once had. It's good having them around, because they control the rodent population which is a vector for disease bearing ticks and other problems. We just don't want them stalking our children in the local park.