PORTLAND, Maine-The future of the coyotes that roam forests, cities and suburbs from Newfoundland to Virginia could hinge on the animals becoming the "wolves" of the East Coast.
Coyotes have lived in the East since the 1930s, and recent genetic tests have shown they are actually a mixture of coyote, wolf and dog. That's why Eastern coyotes tend to be bigger than their Western cousins.
And they might be getting increasingly similar to wolves. The hybrid carnivore has expanded its territory and thrived over the past eight decades, and increasingly wolflike traits are making it a larger, more adaptable animal equipped for survival on the East Coast, scientists say. The growing wolflike characteristics mean humans must learn to better coexist with the adaptable predators, scientists and wildlife advocates said.
"We now have a novel, large canid to take over that new role," said Robert Crabtree, chief scientist of the Yellowstone Ecological Research Center.
It's especially bad news for deer. In becoming more wolflike, the coyotes might become more effective predators, scientists said. And the genetic changes bode well for their ability to keep thriving in highly populated areas, including New York City and Cape Cod, Mass., as well as the deer-rich woods of Maine and upstate New York.
And it could ultimately mean the coyotes start to play the role of top predator on the East Coast-one played by wolves long ago.
The Eastern coyote is one of 19 subspecies of coyote, which are adaptable predators that live everywhere from the streets of Los Angeles to Florida swamps. The Eastern subspecies, which ranges as far west as Ohio, is thought to have migrated to the Northeast some 80 years ago, taking over the range occupied by wolves and interbreeding with the larger animals.
They no longer overlap with wolves, which are long gone from the East save for the very rare red wolf, but they remain eight to 25 percent wolf genetically, said Roland Kays, a leading coyote biologist with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.
Hybridization with wolves gave Eastern coyotes their size and weight, with Eastern coyotes averaging about 35 pounds and the Western subspecies averaging about 25 pounds.
Scientists see evidence that the wolf DNA is increasingly helping the Eastern coyotes survive, Kays said. And they might also be growing in number.
Current numbers of Eastern coyotes are hard to come by, state wildlife officials said. Kays has estimated there are likely more than a million.
Fears that the animals could become a bigger threat, especially to people, are largely unfounded, said Camilla Fox, executive director of California-based Project Coyote. The animals are generally timid around humans.
There has been only one documented fatal Eastern coyote attack. Canadian singer Taylor Mitchell, 19, was mauled by coyotes in Nova Scotia in 2009.