Are 'Coywolves,' Coyote-Wolf Hybrids, Living In Bucks County?

After we shared this Patch report on our Facebook page about "coywolves" living at the Schuylkill Center, we got some feedback from local residents.

Turns out, many of you say coywolves — coyote/wolf hybrids — have been spotted around Bucks County. Turns out, there may have even been a possible coywolf sighting at Tyler State Park.

Reader Jay Davoli shared these photos, saying he took them a few weeks ago at the Newtown Township park. He thought the animal looked like a coyote but seemed large.

See for yourself:

In an opinion piece for the Roxborough Review, Schuylkill Center Executive Director Mike Weilbacher says residents there are experiencing an "evolutionary shift, in plain sight, right before our very eyes."

Weilbacher says as the state's wolf population waned over year and years, coyotes carved their way into the ecosystem.

"There seems to be an emerging agreement that the new northeaster coyote is a new kind of dog, bigger than the western coyote but smaller than the wolf," Weilbacher writes. "It’s a coyote-wolf-dog hybrid, mostly coyote, yes, but with others mixed in. Some biologists have even suggested it’s a new species, Canis oriens, the 'eastern dog,' Canis being the genus name that dog, wolf, and coyote already share."

Patch has reached out to the Pennsylvania DCNR to find out if there have been sightings of this phenomenon at Tyler Park. We will update this post when we hear back.

Image via Jay Davoli