Higher classification Gray wolf | Scientific name Canis lupus alces Rank Subspecies | |
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Similar Gray wolf, Newfoundland wolf, Cascade mountain wolf, Canis lupus youngi, Bernard's wolf | ||
The Kenai Peninsula wolf (Canis lupus alces), also known as the Kenai Peninsula grey wolf, was a sub-species of the gray wolf, Canis lupus, that lived on a peninsula in southern Alaska known as Kenai Peninsula.
Contents
History
The species was classified in 1941 as one of the four subspecies in Alaska by Edward Goldman.
Wolves were common on the Peninsula before 1900, however, gold was discovered there in 1895. Miners fearing rabies commenced poisoning, hunting and trapping the wolves and by 1915 they had been extirpated. The wolf was officially declared Extinct in 1925.
Re-population of wolves from other areas onto the peninsula didn't occur until the 1960s. It has been shown through DNA studies that, at minimum, the current population of wolves on the Kenai Peninsula mated with other Alaskan subspecies, as the structure of the current wolf population's DNA is similar to other mainland Alaskan subspecies.
Description
The wolf was dependent on the very large moose of the Kenai Peninsula and Goldman proposed that its large size was an adaption to this.
A skull is held by the Smithsonian museum, specimen number USNM 147471.