Red Wolf Recovery: A Rosy Picture
by Howard Youth
Two hundred years ago, small packs of red wolves (Canis rufus) roamed the wetlands, forests, and mountains of the eastern United States. From New York to the Deep South and west to Texas, these sleek, rusty-coated canids hunted deer and other wildlife. Meanwhile, Americans hunted them. Fearing what wolves might do to their families and livestock, people relentlessly shot, trapped, and poisoned the animals. By the late 1960s, only about 20 red wolves remained in wooded parts of Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas.
At almost the last minute, the wolf became something to be saved and not slaughtered. Scientists captured the remaining animals between 1973 and 1980 in a last-ditch effort to save the species through zoo breeding. Today, red wolves once again run wild, although under much more controlled conditions than in the past. Between 60 and 100 individuals now live in eastern North Carolina, six or so survive in a faltering program in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and 16 others live freely on four publicly owned islands in Mississippi, Florida, and South Carolina.
The red wolf made history as the first U.S. species to be successfully reintroduced after extinction in the wild. The United States Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), working closely with state agencies, the public, and zoos, released the first animals into North Carolina's Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in 1987. More wolves were later introduced nearby, then in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in eastern Tennessee. Since the first reintroductions, at least 139 pups have been born in the wild in eastern North Carolina and 30 more in the Great Smokies. Most of the wolves now living in eastern North Carolina were born there.
Although some have been killed by cars, hunters, and other wolves, these losses do not threaten this healthy population. The Great Smokies project, however, has foundered, possibly due to a poor prey base around the release site. The USFWS is studying other parts of the park for future releases, and may consider other areas from West Virginia to Arkansas as well. By and large, the public has supported the red wolf reintroduction. In fact, 35 percent of the wolf's current habitat in eastern North Carolina is on private land where the owners welcome wolves. "If you don't have a majority of the people behind it," says USFWS Red Wolf Recovery Coordinator Gary Henry, "you're doomed to failure." Henry adds that this is especially true in the East, where federal lands are scattered and few extensive wilderness areas remain.
The red wolf reintroduction has proven much less controversial than the reintroduction of gray wolves in Yellowstone. Henry thinks a main reason is that the Southeast lacks the large cattle operations that hound wolf proponents out West. "We also spent an intensive amount of time and effort in outreach before we proposed to start this--before the Big Bad Wolf thing ruled the day," he said.
Nonetheless, the program has faced some controversy. Two counties and two landowners in eastern North Carolina are suing the USFWS in an attempt to take over the management of wolves on private property. The landowners say they live in fear of the animals. Despite this concern, only two confirmed wolf kills have been reported in the program's ten-plus years: A hunting dog was killed on federal land and a few newborn goats were killed by an old, lone wolf that was in turn removed by the USFWS. "It's important to act quickly if there are problems, and we do," says Henry.
Zoos and other institutions play an important role in the red wolf recovery program by maintaining a healthy, genetically diverse population of releasable red wolves. They breed the animals under a cooperative Species Survival Program, or SSP. All told, 178 wolves live in 33 institutions, including a pair that lives at the National Zoo. In 1997, a female born at the National Zoo successfully bred with a male on Florida's St. Vincent Island, producing six pups, five of which survive. If all goes well, these pups will later be released on the mainland. Meanwhile, another National Zoo-born red wolf, the St. Vincent female's sister, has just been released on Mississippi's Horn Island, along with a male from the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma, Washington. Conservationists are proud to have put red wolves back in the East. The USFWS's Henry is no exception: "There's no place that deserves wolves more than Yellowstone," he says, "but I think it's extraordinary that we've succeeded in establishing a viable wolf population in the East—where there's the least public land and the majority of the human population."
(ZooGoer 27(3) 1998. Copyright 1998 Friends of the National Zoo. All rights reserved.)
