DNA of wolf declared extinct in wild lives on in Taxes pack

DALLAS» Researchers say a pack of wild canines found frolicking near the beaches of the Texas Gulf Coast carries a substantial amount of red wolf genes, a surprising discovery because the animal was declared ex-tinct in the wild nearly 40 years ago.

The finding has led wildlife biolo-gists and others to develop a new un-derstanding that the red wolf DNA is remarkably resilient after decades of human hunting, loss of habitat and other factors had led the animal to near decimation.

"Overall, it's incredibly rare to re-discover animals in a region where they were thought to be extinct and it's even more exciting to show that a piece of an endangered genome has been preserved in the wild," said Elizabeth Heppenheimer, a Princeton University biologist in-volved in the research on the pack found on Galveston Island in Texas. The work of the Princeton team was published in the scientific journal Genes.