Endangered red wolf can make it in the wild, but not without 'significant' help, study says
endangered red wolf can survive in the wild, but only with «significant additional management intervention,» according to a long-awaited population viability analysis released Friday.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service also released an updated recovery plan Friday for "Canis rufus" — the only wolf species unique to the United States. It calls for spending nearly $328 million over the next 50 years to get the red wolf off the endangered species list.
«This final revised recovery plan will help the conservation and survival of the Red Wolf, ensuring these endangered canids endure in the wild for future generations,» Interior Department Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Shannon Estenoz said in a news release.
But the announcement comes with a lot of caveats. The viability analysis says it will take drastic reductions in gunshot and vehicle deaths, stepped-up efforts to prevent wolf-coyote mixing, and creative methods to increase reproduction in the wild and captive wolf populations.
As of August, Fish and Wildlife said the known and collared wild population was 13, with a total estimated wild population of 23 to 22 — all on and around two federal reserves on the North Carolina coast.
«Despite active current management of this very small population, declines in abundance will likely continue in the face of persistent threats including high anthropogenic (human-caused) mortality and continued hybridization with coyotes,» the study said.
If releases from the captive breeding program were to cease, extinction of the North Carolina population will likely take place in two to three decades.
The red wolf once roamed from central Texas to southern Iowa and as far east as Long Island, New York. But generations
