Kenai Peninsula Wolf

Facts about Kenai Peninsula Wolfs. "Scientific name for Kenai Peninsula Wolf is Canis lupus alces". The Kenai Peninsula Wolf is recognized to be the sub variety of the Gray Wolf that comes from the canidae family’s canis genus. The Kenai Peninsula Wolves are native to the Kenai Peninsula, situated in the southern parts of Alaska and hence, are called by the common name as the Kenai Peninsula Gray Wolf.

The Kenai Peninsula Wolf breed was first observed during the initial part of the 1890s, when many colonizers came to the area due to the huge migration period called the Klondike Gold Rush. However, by the last part of the 1910s, the population of the Kenai Peninsula Wolf breeds had been approximately totally eradicated by hunting and killed through the application of the poison called strychnine. Though there are sprinkled reports of wolf sightings in the region in the 1940s. The confirmed re-appearance of the Kenai Peninsula wolves on the peninsula did not take place until the 1960s. The maximum registered height of the Kenai Peninsula Wolf breed was 4 1/2 feet (1.4 meters) at the shoulder, the biggest wolf ever sighted or recorded. It is not known whether the new groups of the Kenai Peninsula Wolf breeds represented other Alaskan wolves that colonized the region, or the successors of some of the Kenai Peninsula wolf breeds, which had survived. It has been exposed in the course of DNA studies that, at minimum, the Kenai Peninsula Wolf breeds were mated with other Alaskan wolf breeds because the body structure of the DNA of the existing wolf population is analogous to other mainland wolves of Alaska.

Features of Kenai Peninsula Wolf

The Kenai Peninsula Wolf is an extinct variety of wolf breed, and it is said to have a body length that ranges from 60 inches to 84 inches (5 feet to 7 feet), when measured from its head to its tail. The Kenai Peninsula Wolf breed has a tail with a length of 22 inches (60 cm). An adult Wolf is capable of growing to a maximum height, ranging from 35 inches to 44 inches (2.9 feet to 3.7 feet), and they have a maximum body weight that ranges from 200 lbs to 250 lbs (90 kg to110 kg).

The body size of the Kenai Peninsula Wolf enables the animal to hunt for the big moose easily, which roams the peninsula frequently. The Kenai Peninsula Wolf breed is widely acknowledged as the biggest recognized variety of canid. The Kenai Peninsula Wolf breed was categorized as one of the four sub varieties in Alaska during 1944 by a senior biologist, Edward Goldman. Though there is an existing wolf population on the Kenai Peninsula, the lack of hereditary resemblance to the original variety has caused a categorization of extinction for the unique Kenai Peninsula Wolf breeds.

Hereditarily, the Kenai Peninsula Wolf was found to be imprecise from the wolves of the mainland. However, the Kenai Peninsula Wolves were different in one aspect, although they are the ignoble ones. The Kenai Peninsula Wolf breeds experienced an incidence of diseases earlier than their mainland equivalents. These wolf breeds were the initial Alaskan wolves to get several dog-associated parasites and diseases.

Diet of Kenai Peninsula Wolf

Like other wolf breeds of the Kenai Peninsula, the Kenai Peninsula Wolf mostly feeds on moose and hence it attained its trinomial name. This wolf breed will also feed on other big ungulates.

The average lifespan of the Kenai Peninsula Wolf ranges from 7 years to 10 years.