Jealous little men, always trying to put doubt on other people's success. Typical!

No matter how you slice it that's a very big coyote. Take a look at his head, its huge. I'm interested in hearing the results of the DNA test. Thanks for sharing, Tony.

You must be really proud of yourself....

I have many reasons to be proud of myself, one of which is my quick wit and genius sense of humor - one that you are apparently to tightly wound to appreciate.

Definitely a black panther behind the guy holding the big dead husky dog.

If it was meant to be a joke that's fine ... but when you just post a comment that is negative, the words stand alone. No one knows if you are trying to be funny or just being an azz.

I posted the pic to share something I thought was unusual with fellow hunters. I can deal with people questioning what the animal is (which is why the VA Trappers Association is trying to get it DNA'ed). What I find unnecessary are cheap shots and negative comments.

Tony thanks for sharing very interesting.

I love your math analysis

On the other hand the grade school kids comments.

Wow thats huge!

Man you need to relax. Its a picture of a guys trophy. Cant we just comments without being criticized all the time? They arent negative comments and cheap shots. Dont post if you dont want our replies.

I do not have any problem with comments, but I do think it is unnecessary to take a cheap shot at someone's good fortune or luck when they get a trophy. That's how I took that comment and I replied (author then said it was meant to be humor and that's fine ..no issue). But in general I have an issue with posts that do take cheap shots....and if I am the original poster I figure I am entitled to respond. It's that simple.

An idiot, dolt, or dullard is an intellectually disabled person, or someone who acts in a self-defeating or significantly counterproductive way.

looks like it would be a wolf cross..

Dusty,
The coyotes in VA are almost all coyote x Great Lakes Wolves(GLW) ...that is they exhibit DNA from coyotes and GLWs. Smithsonian did a DNA study that supports this and that study's link is posted in this thread....along with that study is a link to an an article about a 104 pound coyote that was killed in MO and MO Fish & Game did an DNA which came out pure coyote and not wolf or even coyote-wolf hybrid.

That said, we want to find out if this is an unusually large Eastern Coyote, an wild naturally occurring Eastern Coyote x Wolf hybrid (by that I mean wolf in the last generation or two) or a human bred wolf x dog hybrid that got feral. None of us in VA that are aware of the animal think it's a pure coyote (bearing in mind that we know Eastern coyotes are not pure coyotes).

VA Game and Inland Fisheries posted there 2014 deer kill numbers.....down 22% since last year and down 18% from the last 10 years average. The VDGIF sites plentiful acorns and deer not having to move impacted hunter success and also mention EHD (which was not that bad) ..... they did not even mention the increase in coyote populations as being a possible contributor.

A lot of us in VA are seeing more and more coyotes and I personally am seeing less fawns and believe the coyotes are impacting the fawn crop.

Well, whatever the heck it is, I wouldn't want to run into it walking to the stand.

Glad it's dead.

This photo guide might help the ears appear to be intermediate between a wolf and coyote

Thanks for sharing that information.

It looks like I have an agreement to get a tissue sample DNA'ed by a very reputable university lab in California. The lab can do the DNA analysis for wolf species, coyote and dog DNA. The lab director connected me with several researchers on the East Coast and an ongoing Eastern Coyote study. So the plan is to donate the skull to a university museum ...they will take the tissue sample and send it to the California university lab...the lab will then perform the DNA analysis and provide the results to the researchers doing the Eastern Coyote study and also share it with us.

I had to coordinate this with 3 separate universities. Turns out the lab that can do the analysis doesn't do private work....hence I had to get "connected" to a study or grant activity. Once it's a done deal and I get the DNA analysis I will post all the details here including the universities involved.

As an aside, the researchers who saw the picture were impressed...so much so that they wanted the skull as a curator specimen so other researchers would have access and the researchers wanted to be the ones taking the sample so that no one could question the source.

So in a few months (it will take that long) we will know what this animal's pedigree is and I'll post the results.

What I also found out is that there are several studies going on about coyotes and coyote-wolf hybridization in the wild....particularly here on the east coat.

A few months back some of you may remember a picture I posted of a 82 0pound "Coyote" that a fellow in VA had shot which we suspected was possibly a Coyote/Wolf Hybrid (see attached photo.)




After jumping through several loops I was finally able to get the DNA results by donating the skull to the NC Museum of Natural Sciences and they set tissue samples to the Wayne La, Dept. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
University of California, Los Angeles, CA for DNA analysis.

Here are the summary results which I received in an email this week:

"We tested the large coyote with a diagnostic SNP panel to analyze its ancestry: 10 diagnostic coyote/wolf markers and 2 diagnostic coyote/dog markers. We also tried to amplify D-loop but the PCR failed, so I'm planning on getting back to that later this week.


Coyote/Wolf SNPs (10 loci):

- Heterozygous at 7/10 markers, homozygous coyote at 2/10 markers, and homozygous wolf at 1/10 markers

- 55% coyote alleles


Coyote/Dog SNPs (2 loci):

- Homozygous coyote at both markers


There is no evidence of dog ancestry, but the individual appears to be a potential F1 hybrid based on the coyote/wolf loci. We also tested 10 dog/wolf diagnostic SNPs, but the animal does not appear to be a dog hybrid (homozygous wolf at 7/10 markers, heterozygous at 2/10 markers, homozygous dog at 1/10 markers).


I'll send out the D-loop results when we have them, possibly next week."


So the bottom line is that it looks like a wolf-coyote hybrid that was killed in VA (where we do not have wolves).

Hybrid... where there is one.

Keep those rascals in VA.

Here is a Grey wolf/Red Heeler cross. Dad is full Grey wolf!

I hunted Va. for years and can say I have seen the yotes crossing with dogs. The plant I worked in had a visitor that the women fed and remarked about how cute it was, being from desert I knew the coyote when I saw it and that is what they were feeding. This particular one crossed with a dalmation, I saw mother with milk but never found the pups. The yote knew what I wanted and would light out when I followed. Ran into a Wolf in N.C. one year putting out salt blocks in spring, no gun but luckily had my dog along, wolf had pups and was not happy. We also took a red fox the size of a collie in Va.and the fairy diddles are alive and well in West Va. Nature finds a way.

not eastern, been killed out for many yrs, only find the eastern in Canada & along the US..Canadian border, US fish & game has done studies of the population in the eastern US, all have domestic dog in their genes

Colt,
He was referring to Eastern Coyote NOT Eastern Wolf.

The Eastern Wolf is now only found in Canada (also called the Algonquin Wolf). Regarding the remaining Eastern Wolves, I have never read/heard that they "all have domestic dog in their genes." What I have read is that they did have DNA results showing Red Wolf DNA(which surprised everyone since Red wolves are in the south and their current population is now threatened with coyotes interbreeding with them) and coyote DNA. Regarding coy-dogs (not wolf-dogs), the common consensus among researchers is that most of the crossed pups starve because the males (domestic dogs) abandoned the female coyotes after breeding. So coy-dogs are rare but do happen.

Boy, sure sounds like a bunch of wolf racists on this post. And there is NO WAY IN HADES I would have donated that skull to ANYONE but myself! May not ever get another one.
Now y'll go back to bickering....

d.g.,

The only way we could get a reputable DNA test done was to be part of a study or reputable institution (a Jerry Springer DNA test wasn't an option :-)....hence the trade. I even offered to pay the labs but they said they are not set up to take payments, etc. So it was the path that made the most sense.

The hunter did keep the hide (but he cut off the feet as is typical for trappers and was going to give it to a friend who traps and sell fur). We finally did convinced him to do a full body mount with the feet hidden by artificial snow.