Cascade mountain wolf facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Cascade Mountains wolf
Illustration based on a description by Edward Alphonso Goldman
Conservation status
Extinct  (1940)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Canidae
Genus:	Canis
Species:	C. lupus
Subspecies:	†C. l. fuscus
Trinomial name
Canis lupus fuscus Richardson 1839
Historical and present range of gray wolf subspecies in North America
Synonyms
gigas (Townsend, 1850)

The Cascade Mountains wolf (Canis lupus fuscus) is an extinct subspecies of the gray wolf that was once found in the Pacific Northwest (British Columbia, Oregon, and Washington). The wolf became extinct in 1940. It was originally identified as a separate species by Richardson in 1839 and from other wolves in the area by Edward Goldman in 1945. This wolf is recognized as a subspecies of Canis lupus in the taxonomic authority Mammal Species of the World (2005). It was described as a cinnamon-coloured wolf, measuring 165 cm and weighing 36–49 kg.

Recently another subspecies, the British Columbia wolf (Canis lupus columbianus), has established itself in the Cascade mountain wolf's past territory by following the Cascade Range through Washington and is now west of the Cascade crest, expanding across Oregon, and into northern California to Lassen Peak, where in 2019 the Lassen pack produced 3 wolf pups.