Dire Wolf Revival: Could the Once Extinct Species Inhabit Washington?

An extinct species of wolf dying out over 12,000 years ago is back from the dead as the world's first successfully de-extincted animal.

That's according to Dallas-based biotech company Colossal Biosciences, who claim they have resurrected the dire wolf.

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Colossal scientists created three dire wolf puppies using ancient DNA and gene-editing technology to alter the genes of a gray wolf, the dire wolf's closest living relative.

The Return of the Dire Wolf: Could They Thrive in Washington State?

You may be familiar with the dire wolf from the HBO TV series "Game of Thrones" where the five Stark children all discover dire wolf pups in the summer snow. However, they aren't just mythical creatures. They roamed North and South America for tens of thousands of years.

Dire wolves were approximately three feet tall with a length of nearly six feet and weighed between 125 and 175 pounds.

Scientists took a tooth from a 75,000 year skull and edited the genes with the gray wolf to bring the animal back from the dead.

Remains have been found in much of the western United States. Which begs the question: Could the dire wolf live in Washington State in the future? Let's take a look.

The Challenges of Reintroducing Dire Wolves to Washington State

Even today, scientists have never discovered a dire wolf carcass in Washington. While there have been discoveries in Idaho, Oregon, California, Nevada, and several other western states, there has not been one discovery in Washington.

If dire wolves were somehow introduced to the state or even the North Cascades, they would likely face starch competition from their relatives, the gray wolves. You may think, well, if the dire wolf is a bigger version of the gray wolf, surely they'll overtake, right?

That's not a bad thought, but the gray wolf has an advantage - population. If there were dire wolves in Washington, there would not be very many and they would likely live out on their own, while vastly outnumbered by dozens of packs in the Cascades.

The Extinction of the Dire Wolf: Competition, Poaching, and Adaptability Challenges

Not only would they face competition, but humans have already been attributed to eradicating the dire wolf once. Hunters or farmers tired of their herd of livestock hunted by these wolves would likely try to poach the species.

Outside of humans, dire wolves became extinct for the first time partially because of their inability to breed with other wolf genus. There are theories that say the gray wolf and the coyote have survived for as long as they have because they are relatively adaptable in their genes and their breeding ability.

Many believe dire wolves excelled in the ice age, and there is evidence to suggest that is the case. Their timeline lines up with the last major glacier era in the Americas. Not only that, but as their food shortages grew with the melting of glaciers, their size became noticably smaller over time.

In Conclusion: The Future of the Dire Wolf in Washington State

In short, it's unlikely the dire wolf will ever make Washington their natural habitat. Not only that, but some geneologists assert these dire wolves are not dire wolves at all, merely a hybrid of a dire wolf and a gray wolf, and are their own species entirely.

So there's probably no need to worry about this. For now, you can just appreciate how cool it is dire wolves exist for the first time in millenia.