Gennaro Tomma in Smithsonian Magazine:
Between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago, a now-extinct population of wolves evolved into dogs, with a little help from humans. Today—at least in Italy, which hosts one of Europe’s largest wolf populations—genes are flowing in the opposite direction. Recent genetic testing suggests that, particularly in the country’s central and southern regions, nearly half of the wild wolves (Canis lupus) are actually wolf-dog hybrids.
That represents a massive shift from the 1970s, when Luigi Boitani, now the chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe, discovered the country’s first known wolf-dog hybrid.
The 1970s were a period of transition for Italy’s wolves. At the time, the population was coming out of a tailspin. New laws and conservation efforts were designed to encourage wolves to recolonize habitat from which they’d been extirpated. But the landscape, and its inhabitants, had changed. Wild countryside had given way to rampant urbanization, and Italy’s central and southern regions—where wolves began recovering first—hosted high numbers of free-ranging dogs. It didn’t take long for the wolves to begin rubbing shoulders (and more) with the local canines.
More here.
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