What Can Be Done to Protect Red Wolves?
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is doing all it can to prevent red wolf extinction. From 1974 to 1980, the agency captured as many red wolves it could, with only 14 animals meeting the species’ defining criteria. With those 14 wolves, the Fish and Wildlife Service began a captive breeding program at the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma, Washington. With successful breeding, the agency then embarked upon reintroduction. In 1987, red wolves were released into North Carolina’s Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. In the following years, to give future animals experience in the wild before their release into their natural habitat, the Fish and Wildlife Service released red wolves onto unpopulated islands off the coast of South Carolina, Mississippi, and Florida. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s North Carolina experiment met with immediate success. In 1988, the first red wolf pups were born at the wildlife reserve. As of 2009, more than 100 wolves live in the wild. Another 200 plus
