Hello everyone! This is a segment that I’ll be doing in my free time. If you don’t know me, I am Zed Shirogane. I do this segment as part of the Furry Weekly Magazine, an online mock magazine for the furry fandom. You can find them on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/furryweekly/.

One of the adopts for this segment has already been sold, as this segmenty was posted at the beggining of the week. However, there is a second adoptable character that is currently still available. If you are interested in keeping up and even having early acess to this segment, I have a patreon dedicated to this new passion project of mine: https://www.patreon.com/ZedShirogane. It also includes exclusive adopts for certain tiers: all of which the funds will be donated to charities for endangered and threatened animal species. This version of Animal Of The Week is without additional images, artworks, and even an additional character still up fpr sale; if you'd like to see the full version it will be publically accessable through my patreon.

Animal of the week is a segment where I highlight an animal I find really cool, cute, creepy, or just plain fascinating. You’ll be able to learn a lot about the animal and I'll link you to some fundraisers that may help the animal of the week. I’ll also be making you guys a coloring page illustration for you all to print out and color in at home, as well as an adoptable character inspired by the animal of the week (all proceeds made by said adopt will be donated to one of the fundraisers for the animal).

Today’s animal of the week is the Gray Wolf!

Gray wolves, or timber wolves, are canines with long bushy tails that are often black-tipped. Their coat color is typically a mix of gray and brown with buffy facial markings and undersides, but the color can vary from solid white to brown or black. These wolves vary in size depending on where they live. Gray wolves in the north are usually larger than those in the south. The average size of a wolf's body is three to five feet long and their tails are usually one to two feet long. Females typically weigh 60-100 pounds, and males weigh 70-145 pounds. They communicate through body language, scent marking, barking, growling, and howling.

Gray wolves live in tightly knit family packs, with the mother and father being the alpha pair. Older brothers and sisters help with the care for the younger generation, and in some well established packs, even grandparents and aunts/uncles are present and pitch in to help their grandkids. Gray wolves prefer to eat large hoofed mammals such as deer, elk, bison, and moose. They also hunt smaller mammals such as beavers, rodents, and hares. Their ability to keep animals migrational and maintain populations are a large part why these wolves are considered a keystone species. Yellowstone National Park at one point had to fly in some wolves because it’s ecosystem was crashing without the presence of these amazing animals.

The historic range of the gray wolf covered over two-thirds of the United States. Today gray wolves have populations in Alaska, northern Michigan, northern Wisconsin, western Montana, northern Idaho, northeast Oregon, and the Yellowstone area of Wyoming. Mexican wolves, a subspecies of the gray wolf, were reintroduced to protected parkland in eastern Arizona and southwest New Mexico. Wolves can thrive in a diversity of habitats from the tundra to woodlands, forests, grasslands and deserts.

Wolves were first given Endangered Species Act protections in 1974 after activities like trophy hunting and trapping, along with other man made causes like habitat loss, led to dangerous drops in their populations around the country. Just this past year, the United States has prematurely lifted federal protections for gray wolves in the lower 48 states. Today gray wolves can only be found in only about 15% of their historic range in the contiguous United States. Scientists warn that delisting gray wolves now, when they still face threats to their survival, is sure to cause irreversible damage.

In 2011, Congress directed the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service to remove ESA protections for wolves in Montana and Idaho as a nod to agricultural and trophy hunting interests, and wolves in Wyoming lost their federal ESA protections in 2017. Agricultural interests being a concern of repopulating wolves attacking livestock, but predators are hardly the main problem for livestock; according to the USDA, in 2015 non-predator causes of death (mainly respiratory diseases) accounted for almost 98% of adult cattle mortality, and almost 89 percent for calves. Of the numerical sliver of cattle and calves that were killed by predators, wolves took only 4.9%, while coyote predation came in at 40.5%. Even domestic dogs claimed 11.3%, more than twice that of wolves. So clearly, wolves aren’t an issue to cause a lift from their protected status. Rather, trophy hunting is what most are after. Since the 2011 removal of ESA protections, thousands of wolves have been massacred in these states. Even pups aren’t safe. During 2020, in Idaho, at least 35 pups, some as young as four to six weeks old, have been killed by trophy hunters, trappers, and state and federal agency personnel. In Wyoming, wolves can be shot on sight in 85% of the state, without a hunting license needed.

With their protections gone, wolves are likely to be most persecuted in areas where their populations are already fragile, like the Great Lakes region. When wolves there briefly lost their federal ESA protections in late 2011, nearly 1,500 were killed in just three seasons, including hundreds of pups. The killing would have continued but for a successful Humane Society of the United States lawsuit that returned wolves in this region to the endangered species list in 2014.

This is an ongoing battle for gray wolves. Conservation and wildlife advocacy groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, filed a pair of petitions requesting that the agency re-list gray wolves as threatened or endangered in light of new laws passed in Idaho and Montana to drastically reduce wolf populations this year.

A lawsuit was filed September 21, 2021 by six Ojibwe tribes, coming months after the state's first legal wolf hunt in decades in February, considered a disaster by critics. That hunt occurred following the removal of wolves from the federal list of endangered species in January, with a hunting quota of 200 wolves. Because of treaty rights assigned to the Ojibwe tribes, the quota was divided between the state and the tribes, with 119 wolves allocated to Wisconsin for hunting, and 81 wolves to the tribes. But those numbers were quickly abandoned, after hunters who weren't affiliated with the tribes killed 218 wolves over the course of three days from the week-long hunt, almost 100 more than allowed. The situation in Wisconsin mirrors one happening across the country, as other tribes push for the protection of wolves and restoring them to the Endangered Species list once more.

There are a multitude of non profit organizations doing their best to help the plight of the gray wolves, and many other wolf species threatened by recent legislation. Defenders: https://defenders.org/wildlife/gray-wolf, is working with ranchers across the West to develop and implement nonlethal deterrents, better animal husbandry practices and other innovative tools that minimize conflict and build social acceptance for wolves. The Wolf Conservation Center: https://nywolf.org/about-the-wcc/mission/, is a not-for-profit environmental education organization working to protect and preserve wolves in North America through science-based education, advocacy, and participation in the federal recovery and release programs for two critically endangered wolf species - the Mexican gray wolf and red wolf. Check out Howler’s Inn: https://www.howlersinn.com/, to see how they are raising funds to be able to protect their resident wolf pack in their sanctuary. The Pacific Wolf Coalition: https://www.pacificwolves.org/about-us/, includes 33 organizations working together toward restoring wolves in the Pacific West.

Thank you all for reading! I hope you all learned a lot about these amazing and deeply troubled animals. Many wolves in the US are in great need of help. I encourage you all to check out more websites and fundraisers to learn more about the fascinating lives of these wonderful and whimsical wolves.

Enjoy this coloring page made by yours truly, for you!
Link To DropBox File: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gx04h7v7u.....0page.png?dl=0