Missed it, but then caught a rerun of it last night. Unfortunately there is a lot of bad information given in that show. I don't know why the narrator kept referring to eastern coyotes and coy wolves as if they are the same thing. Any one that watched the show no doubt noticed the wildlife biologists didn't make the same mistake. There is one relatively small area of Canada where a subspecies of Canus lupus (gray wolves) has hybridized with coyotes to create a "coy wolf", but it is just one little pocket. The eastern coyote, genetically, is just a coyote. As coyotes moved out of the desert southwest they have both adapted (changed their behavior) and evolved (changed genetically) in order to deal with colder, wetter weather and larger prey, but not so much as to become a new species. Further, they did not need to breed with wolves to make these changes because, sharing a common ancestor, they already have "wolf genes", so to speak, it's just a matter of how the environment dictates those genes be expressed. It's kind of like if you send 3 guys out to each live alone in the woods and give each one an axe. If you check back in a few years, each will likely be living in a cabin type shelter of some kind because each needed to solve the same problem using the same tools.
Meanwhile the influence of Canis niger (the red wolf) is unknown. They readily hybridize with coyotes, and their population is very small. So far no one has been able to sort out, genetically, how much of what is seen in red wolves is the original genes of the species versus what has been added in recent centuries by mixing with the highly expansive coyote population. As it is, red wolves are nature's original "coy wolf", occupying the niche between coyotes and gray wolves. Or to look at it another way, the eastern coyote is essentially a reinvention of the red wolf.
Keith
