After two years of intensive independent study, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services announced today they will begin a series of actions to secure both captive and wild populations of red wolves. Protected by the Endangered Species Act for four decades, wild populations in North Carolina were part of a 28 year reintroduction program that halted last year to allow biologists to study the program’s feasibility.
In 1980, the last 17 red wolves were brought into captivity and declared extinct in the wild. In 1987, four male/female pairs bred from these captive wolves were released into North Carolina’s Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. Now, red wolves roam over 1.7 million acres, more than half of it private land. Once these wolves lived throughout the southeastern U.S. as far north as Pennsylvania.
Although the initial reintroductions were successful, USFWS stopped releasing wolves on private land in 2014. Last year, North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission requested USFWS to end its reintroduction program entirely and to remove wolves from private land. The Commission claimed the program was a failure and that the wolves damaged private land. But landowners, tourists who visit the Wildlife Refuge to howl with the wolves, and other citizens protested.
In the 29 years since reintroduction began only a dozen cases of predation have been submitted to USFWS for compensation to pay for lost livestock. Rather, the wolves themselves have experienced predation by human hunters, and further interbred with coyotes. Healthy red wolf populations benefit ecosystems by reducing crop-damaging wildlife such as raccoons, deer and nutria (large South American rodents introduced by fur traders). Deer damage to crops greatly exceeds any wolf problems.
Today’s announcement comes after an independent study of over 200 USFWS documents, interviews with federal and state agencies’ staffs, literature review of red wolf genetics and ecology, two public meetings in the restoration area, and public opinion surveys.
Recovery of the red wolf in the wild is feasible with significant changes that must be implemented to secure the captive and wild populations.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said today it will begin implementing a series of actions based on the best and latest scientific information gathered over the past 21 months. Today’s announcement comes after a two-year, two-step evaluation of the entire red wolf recovery program, including the evaluation of the captive population and the non-essential, experimental population in Eastern North Carolina, that began in 2014 with a peer-reviewed program assessment by the Wildlife Management Institute. This review was expanded last June to include the recommendations of a red wolf recovery team that examined feasibility of recovery in the wild, population viability, red wolf taxonomy, the historical range, and human dimensions.
The recovery includes four main steps, which will be done concurrently.
- Secure the safety of the captive red wolf population.
- Determine suitable new sites for wolf releases.
- Revise the 1995 rule on experimental populations to include only the Dare County Bombing Range and Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, where stable packs exist on federal lands.
- Complete by 2017 a comprehensive Species Status Assessment and five-year status review for the red wolf to guide future recovery planning.
Initial response from conservation groups is that USFWS is abandoning red wolves in the wild except for a limited population on federal land.
...the agency said it would remove isolated packs of wild red wolves from private lands in several North Carolina counties near where they were reintroduced and place them in a single county within the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. [...]
Ron Sutherland of the Wildlands Network said Fish and Wildlife was in effect abandoning its plan to bring wild wolves back to their native habitat in the southeastern United States.[...]
Sutherland said Fish and Wildlife declined to work with North Carolina officials to strengthen penalties for shooting wolves, failed to engage landowners for a workable solution and turn to conservation groups to raise money to buy land that could be transformed into sanctuaries for wolves.
Although recent genetic research found that all North American wolves are one species (gray wolf), local subpopulations are important to their ecosystems and to the larger population. The DNA study also determined that red wolves and eastern wolves from the Great Lakes are not distinct species but are hybrids of gray wolves and coyotes that emerged in the last couple hundred years.
I see this as a win because I thought the program was going to be trashed and ended. That the USFWS would decide to yank in captivity (and kill) all red wolves from the wild because if all North Am wolves are one species (gray wolf), this subpop has no value. That some are being treated as a wild population on federal land is a win compared to what I’d expected. And by leaving some in the wild and conducting more reviews, a route remains available for recognizing that the wolves cannot be restrained to those federal lands. Note the second step of this decision: Determine suitable new sites for wolf releases.
North Carolina is not the most hospitable environment (socially) for predators from the public’s perspective. The conservation groups who were hoping for a Big Win are disappointed and see this decision as a loss. Hunters and people who don’t validate the importance of apex predators and who scoff at actual conservation values see it as win for defining conservation as a human-dominated paradigm. I take the longer view. Some red wolves will remain on federal lands. Others will be held in captivity and that population secured. This last part is important because besides humans, a big threat to the red wolves is interbreeding with coyotes. The more this happens, the less wolf-like is the population.
Rarely do conservation-focused ideals win big against the propaganda of the fearful public and those who don’t appreciate what constitutes an intact functioning ecosystem. My hope is that over time, the federal lands with red wolves will provide evidence that larger population areas are acceptable.
Documents and other information used in making the decision announced today can be accessed on the USFWS Red Wolf Recovery Program website.