http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE1D81638F930A25751C1A965948260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=2],“Although wolves and dogs have always lived in close contact in Italy and have presumably mated in the past, the newly worrisome element, in Dr. Boitani's opinion, is the increasing disparity in numbers, which suggests that interbreeding will become fairly common. As a result, genetic pollution of the wolf gene pool might reach irreversible levels, he warned. By hybridization, dogs can easily absorb the wolf genes and destroy the wolf, as it is, he said. The wolf might survive as a more doglike animal, better adapted to living close to people, he said, but it would not be what we today call a wolf.”
