Gray wolves have no confirmed wild breeding population in Ohio today. They were trapped and shot out of the state by the mid-1800s, and NatureServe now lists them SX, presumed extirpated, its most final status short of global extinction. The 135 records gathered since 2000 almost certainly include a large share of misidentified coyotes or dogs, since the two are easy to confuse at a distance and coyotes are genuinely common across the same landscape.
Reports cluster in August and October, a pattern more likely tied to when people are out in the field, hunting season among them, than to any real wolf activity. Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge and Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area, the places most often listed here, are wetland and grassland refuges, not the deep forest wolves would actually need to reestablish in Ohio.
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