Red Wolves

Red wolves originally roamed an area from Pennsylvania to central Texas. After a systematic program of extermination and bounty hunting in the late 1930's only two populations remained; one in Arkansas and one in southern Louisiana and southeastern Texas. Other factors that effect the population size include land clearing and drainage projects, logging, mineral exploration, and road development, all of which decrease the size of a pack's territory and their ability to hunt for natural prey.

The red wolf gets its name from the reddish color on its head, ears, and legs, although its coat color can range from light tan to black. It is smaller than the gray wolf, weighing between 45 and 80 pounds. Its most distinguishing features are its long legs and long ears.

In the wild red wolves usually have life-long mates. They reach breeding maturity when they are two or three years old and breed in February or March. The female will dig a den in a ditch, bank, under a rock outcropping or use a suitable hollow log. She is sometimes helped by the male. The litter, which is born in March or April, consists of two to six pups that are born with their eyes closed and are totally dependent on the mother until they are at least two months old. The pups remain with their parents until they are two or three years old. The red wolf pack is smaller than that of the gray wolf probably because they prey on much smaller animals. (For instance, deer in the southeastern United States are considerably smaller than what Minnesotans think of as normal size.) It consists of an adult pair and the young of the current and past year. The pack normally requires a range of 10 to 100 square miles. The red wolf diet consists primarily of white-tailed deer and raccoon, along with small animals such as rabbits when available. They will prey on small livestock such as calves, but only when other prey is not available.

In 1967 the red wolf was listed as an endangered species. Therefore the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service started a captive breeding program in 1973. The wolves remaining in the wild were removed in an effort to save the species from total extinction. At first it was thought that there were 43 true red wolves left. But after further study, it was determined that the number was actually 17. Out of those 17 only 14 successfully bred in captivity. 1977 saw the first captive red wolf pairs produce litters. Biologists took great care that wild instincts were maintained and avoided creating a dependence on man. By 1980 the red wolf was considered extinct in the wild. In 1987 four pairs were reintroduced to the wild in North Carolina, and in 1988 the first wild reproduction occurred.

The Red Wolf Recovery Project is now pulling animals out of the wild in Tennessee because the park where they were released has proven to be inadequate. The terrain is steep and covered by mature forest. This area does not produce enough prey to feed the animals and they were moving out of the park and into farming areas where they were starting to prey on livestock, and they were being destroyed for that reason. These animals will now be held at facilities across the country like the Wildlife Science Center while another suitable reintroduction site is found. The WSC is one of 33 facilities in the United States that is honored to house these wonderful animals so they will be here for future generations.

Red Wolves and the WSC
WSC continues its cooperative efforts with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) by providing a science based education, research, and training facility to assist both the captive and wild repatriation components within the Red Wolf Recovery Program. Along with three males and one female that arrived in 1996, WSC also accepted three females and three males from Bramble Park Zoo (South Dakota) in 1999. This brings our total number of red wolves to ten.

The Recovery Plan originally called for three separate wild restoration sites that could maintain a minimum of 220 animals along with a minimum of 30 captive facilities. The captive facilities would safeguard the genetic viability of the small gene pool (14 founder red wolves) by housing over 300 of these extremely endangered wolves. The red wolf program currently maintains about 100 animals in the wild (80 are radio collared) and about 200 animals in 34 captive facilities. The original mainland release site, Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, hosts a single large, widely dispersing population of red wolves with neighboring Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. The wild and captive operations of red wolf recovery have been working together for many years to better understand the red wolf's biology, physiology, behavior, genetics and reproduction.

Current research conducted at WSC will hopefully determine the effectiveness and feasibility of safe, reversible reproductive inhibitors that can be applicable for both captive and wild wolf populations. The slow, time released implant negates the necessity for invasive surgeries or separation of animals during breeding season. Also of concern is the effect of the implant on the behavior of the animal.

Along with practical research there are also physiological studies. Recent genetic studies indicate that the eastern timber wolf and the red wolf may actually be one and the same, only subspecies of one another. This news becomes more of a shock to the scientific community when it is also believed that this "eastern seaboard" wolf species evolved separately from the gray wolf. Further studies will continue to shed light on this subject as it will likely have legal ramifications for the protection of both red and gray wolves.

Red Wolves Arrive, August, 1999
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Wildlife Science Center have teamed up again! Three new red wolf females arrived in August 1999 from "The Wilds" zoo in Cumberland, Ohio. The continuing success of the Red Wolf Recovery Program's captive propagation requires that many facilities work together to provide sufficient captive space to safeguard the future of this endangered species.

Captive facilities are invaluable to many protected species for a multitude of reasons such as:

1. protection from unsustainable exploitation (e.g. poaching) and natural mortality;
2. more genetic management / enhanced preservation of the gene pool;
3. accelerate the expansion of the population towards the recovery goals; and
4. provide an environment where research can be conducted that is integral for the species survival and enhanced management in the wild.

Currently, only 12 of the original 14 founding red wolf lines are represented in the wild and captive populations combined. The Wildlife Science Center shall continue to increase its involvement with the red wolf program as we expand.