The black fur allele has fitness costs but also confers higher immunity against canine distemper virus, making mix-and-match mating key to population survival.
The genomes of living animals are littered with DNA from long-gone relatives, providing a lens on evolution, past extinctions, and perhaps even solutions to agricultural problems.
If signed, the law would boost funding for independent contractors to kill wolves and would allow for more than 90 percent of the population in the state to be taken by hunters.
This month, voters in the state approved the predators’ reintroduction, but the species’ recent delisting as an endangered species at the federal level binds up available funding.
The wild population of the species was declared extinct almost 40 years ago, but now researchers have found their genes in a pack of canines near the Gulf coast.