CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME 224 California Fish and Game 93(4):224-227 2007 224 INCONSISTENCIES IN HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHIC RANGE MAPS: THE GRAY WOLF AS EXAMPLE STEPHANIE L. SHELTON 1 AND FLOYD W. WECKERLY Department of Biology Texas State University San Marcos, TX 78666 Correspondent email: stephanie.shelton@gmail.com Range maps depicting historical distributions of wildlife may be inconsistent. Different maps can be based on diverse sources of evidence which may vary in reliability (e.g., specimens in Natural History Museums, trapper and hunter journals, conversations recorded in dairies) and the effort expended locating evidence may differ among map makers (Young and Goldman 1944, Seton 1953, Hall 1981). Despite these limitations, maps depicting historical distributions are useful to individuals and institutions concerned with maintenance of biodiversity or restoration of native species to areas where they were extirpated. In this note, we used maps of the historical distribution of the gray wolf, Canis lupus, to exemplify such inconsistencies. Once found throughout much of North America, gray wolf populations within the contiguous United States were almost extirpated, but some populations in Canada, Alaska, and Mexico have remained largely intact (Young and Goldman 1944, Leopold et al. 1981). Similar situations exist with other mammalian species in the United States, particularly large, charismatic herbivores and carnivores such as bison, Bos bison, elk, Cervus elaphus, mountain sheep, Ovis canadensis, and grizzly bear, Ursus arctos (Hall 1981). Available historical distribution data can assist in restoration efforts for these mammalian species in particular. MATERIALS AND METHODS We selected historical range maps of North American gray wolves that were developed independently of one another (Fig. 1). Historical was defined as the time period around 1500, the time before extensive colonization by Europeans. We considered distribution maps to be independent if the authors did not state their distribution maps were based on findings from other studies. We used range maps from (Fig. 1) Young and Goldman (1944), Seton (1953), Hall (1981), and Nowak (2002). The chosen sources present their gray wolf range maps as common knowledge of the distribution of the gray wolf in North America. No explicit details on how these maps were created appear in any of the sources. Each independent North American source range map was overlaid onto a base map of the continental United States by heads up digitization using ArcMap 9.0 (Environmental Research Institute, 2004). This final ranked map depicted the agreement and differences among the four maps in the historical range distribution of the gray wolf in the United States. Rankings were shown on the final map from 0-4. Areas with 0 1 Current address: Stephanie Shelton, 12610 Live Oak Lane, Buda, TX 78610