The nape, shoulder and tail region are a mix of black and gray, with the flanks and chest being rufous or creamy.

[28] The main threat to this wolf is human hunting and trapping outside of the protected areas, which leads to genetic introgression with the eastern coyote due to a lack of mates.

Further human development immediately outside of the protected areas and the negative public perception of wolves are expected to inhibit any further expansion of their range.

It was published in 1775 by the German naturalist Johann Schreber, who had based it on the earlier description and illustration of one specimen that was thought to have been captured near Quebec.

[5] When European settlers first arrived to North America, the coyote's range was limited to the western half of the continent.

"[10] Some of the earliest Canis specimens were discovered at Cripple Creek Sump, Fairbanks, Alaska, in strata dated 810,000 years old.

The study proposes that dispersing male gray wolves were mating with coyote females in deforested areas bordering wolf territory.

[34] In 2011, a study compared the genetic sequences of 48,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (mutations) taken from the genomes of canids from around the world.

[36] In 2014, the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis was invited by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to provide an independent review of its proposed rule relating to gray wolves.

The unexpected finding was that the one Great Lakes wolf specimen included in this study showed a high degree of genetic divergence.

The study called for further research into the Y-chromosomes of coyotes and wolves to ascertain if this is where this unique genetic male lineage may have originated from.

Bounties led to the extirpation of wolves initially in the southeast, and as the wolf population declined wolf–coyote admixture increased.

[5] The proposed timing of the wolf/coyote divergence conflicts with the finding of a coyote-like specimen in strata dated to 1 million years before present.

The group asserts the three-year generation time used to calculate the divergence periods between different species was lower than empirical estimates of 4.7 years.

Individuals within each group showed consistent levels of coyote to wolf inheritance, indicating that this was the result of relatively ancient admixture.

The most genetically basal coyote mDNA clade pre-dates the Last Glacial Maximum and is a haplotype that can only be found in the Eastern wolf.

The flanks and chest are rufous or creamy, while the nape, shoulder and tail region are a mix of black and gray.

[49] Today, the Great Lakes wolf is generally found in the northern halves of Minnesota and Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan,[51] southeastern Manitoba and northern Ontario,[19] and the Algonquin wolf inhabits central and eastern Ontario as well as southwestern Quebec north of the St. Lawrence River.

[19][29] Algonquin wolves are particularly concentrated in Algonquin Provincial Park and other nearby protected areas, such as Killarney, Kawartha Highlands and Queen Elizabeth II Wildlands Provincial Parks and recent surveys also reveal small numbers of Algonquin wolves in the southern areas of northeastern Ontario and northwestern Ontario as far west as the Lake of the Woods near the border with Manitoba, where there is some mixing with Great Lakes wolves, and into southcentral Ontario, where there is some mixing with eastern coyotes.

[19] There are some reports of eastern wolf sightings and of wolves being shot by hunters in Quebec south of the St. Lawrence River, New Brunswick, New York State, northern Vermont and Maine.

[51][52][53][54] For example, DNA results of a canid killed near Cherry Valley, New York, in 2021 initially pointed to it being an eastern coyote, but a recent statement by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) confirms the animal was a wolf, with most of its ancestry matching wolves in Michigan; the DEC also has not confirmed or denied a breeding population within the state.

Certain proponents of wolf recolonization state that wolves are already established in New York and New England, and have naturally dispersed from Canada by crossing the frozen St. Lawrence River.

[56] The region's indigenous human populations did not fear eastern wolves, though they did occasionally catch them in traps, and their bones occur in native shell heaps.

A bounty system was put into effect, offering higher rewards for adult wolves, with their heads exposed on hooks in meetinghouses.

Nevertheless, wolves were still plentiful enough in New England in the early 18th century to warrant the settlers of Cape Cod discussing the building of a high fence between Sandwich and Wareham to keep them out of grazing lands.

It continued to persist throughout the late 1800s, despite extensive logging and efforts by park rangers to eliminate it, largely due to the sustaining influence of plentiful prey items like deer and beaver.

[36] In 2013, an experiment which produced hybrids of coyotes and northwestern gray wolves in captivity using artificial insemination contributed more information to the controversy surrounding the eastern wolf's taxonomy.

The resulting six hybrids produced in this captive artificial breeding were later transferred to the Wildlife Science Center of Forest Lake in Minnesota, where their behaviors were studied.

The park considers the attraction as the cornerstone of its wolf education program and credits it with changing public attitudes towards wolves in Ontario.

The most serious case occurred in 1998 when a male wolf that had been long noted to be unafraid of humans stalked a couple walking their four-year-old daughter in September that year, losing interest when the family took refuge in a trailer.