8 Years until Red Wolf Extinction?
April was a roller-coaster month for the world’s rarest wolves.
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On April 21 the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, N.C., announced that its female red wolf (Canis rufus) had given birth to a trio of adorable pups. Only about 220 red wolves exist in captivity, with the animals spread around the country among 43 institutions, so every birth tends to be cause for celebration.
This time, sadly, there wasn’t much opportunity for joy. Just four days later, on April 25, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the wild population of red wolves had crashed to about 40 individuals, including just three breeding pairs. That’s down from about 120 wild wolves in 2013.
Why this sudden, precipitous decline? It all started in 2012, when North Carolina introduced a new state rule that allowed night hunting of coyotes, which are often considered to be pests. That put the wolves, which are a bit bigger than coyotes and have been known to cross-breed with them, directly in the crosshairs. Since that rule went into effect dozens of the animals have been accidentally—and in some cases, it appears, intentionally—killed by bullets, private trappers or poisonings. Others were killed after being struck by vehicles, an unfortunately side effect of their once-growing and dispersing population
The decline is now so severe that the Service’s report warns the few remaining wolves in the wild could be completely gone in as little as eight years. “The red wolf does not have the adequate numbers or multiple resilient populations needed for the species” to persist in the wild, according to the report.
The news marks a dramatic turn in the conservation of red wolves, a species which has already been saved from extinction once before. Red wolves nearly disappeared in the last century after decades of hunting by farmers trying to protect livestock. The final 14 purebred wolves were brought into captivity for a breeding program that started in 1969, and every red wolf that lives today is descended from those few animals. The wolves living in the wild, all of which are in North Carolina, came from that founding population and an experimental reintroduction program which began in 1992.
Now that experiment appears to be failing, leaving the hope for the species once again on the captive-breeding program.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/8-years-until-red-wolf-extinction/
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