Canis Rufus
Description and Ecology
The Red Wolf (Canis Rufus) is a smaller and lankier cousin of the more commonly known Grey Wolf. With an average weight of 70 pounds the red wolf makes for a formidable predator. The red wolf's diet is made up of primarily rabbits and rodents, but its also known to eat insects, berries and occasionally deer. They are mostly active at night, and communicate with each other by certain vocalizations such as howling or barking, scent marking, and body expressions. These animals are wary and covert as they hunt alone or in small packs. These packs resemble complex social structures with an alpha male and female as the breeding adult pair that leads the pack. Once a red wolf finds a mate they tend to form pair-bonds for life. The size of the pack is determined by the size of available prey populations. The pack itself is organized into dominant and subordinate animals that makes for better team work. Red wolves often reside in dens located in hollow trees, steam banks and sand knolls. Their mating season is during the late winter and their litter size varies from two to eight pups.
Geographic and Population Changes
In the past, red wolves were ranged throughout the southeastern U.S. from Pennsylvania to Florida and stretching west to Texas. Almost being hunted to the brink of extinction, the range of the species has certainly narrowed. Today, wild populations of the red wolf cover around 1.7 million acres around northeastern North Carolina, including Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge and Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. Don't be fooled by the large amount of land as there are roughly only 45 red wolves throughout this entire area. From data in 2007 there are approximately 207 captive red wolves that reside in 38 breeding facilities across the United States.
Listing Status: Endangered
Listing Date: May, 1973
Causes of Listing/Main Threat
- Habitat Loss: This is mainly due to human development, as the red wolves reside in northern Carolina, an area that has mostly been deforested and domesticated. As nearby cities expand and people purchase land with an expectation for a return on their investment, the habitat is reduced smaller and smaller. Additionally as large areas of land are necessary for this species to thrive, specifically 170,000 acres, their chance to survive becomes even more unrealistic.
- Hunting: Neighboring communities portray recreational hunting, fishing, and trapping as the norm for many residents. This creates two problems for the red wolf population. First, many hunters seek to kill the renown red wolf for its rarity. Second many hunters kill the prey of the red wolf, and with already a scarce amount of prey the competition pushes the problem further. Additionally these hunting interests have posed big problems for local political movements to save the red wolves.
Description of Recovery Plan
The main objective for the recovery of the red wolves is the establishment of 220 red wolves in the wild and 330 in captivity, this would provide enough individuals for genetic stability and maintain the species. For the temporary future it would not be considerable to delist or downlist this species. To meet this objective the criteria would be to establish and maintain three reintroduction projects within the existing range of the red wolf. The individual objectives for each project can be separated into three sections. First to preserve 80 to 90 percent genetic diversity of the species. Second would be to remove the existing threats that have the potential to cause the species to be extinct. Third would be to maintain the red wolf through cryogenic preservation of sperm and embryo banking.
What can you do?
- Adopt a Red Wolf which supplies the Endangered Wold Center with $135 to help reach recovery objections
https://www.endangeredwolfcenter.org/adopt/
2. Become an advocate for policy changes to preserve the red wolf's habitat.
Other Sources
- http://www.defenders.org/red-wolf/threats
- https://www.fws.gov/redwolf/
- https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2017/red-wolf-01-31-2017.php
- http://thetruthaboutredwolves.com/
It was interesting to learn how much land is necessary for the wolves' survival. The fact that only 45 wolves were using the land displayed in the image was surprising.
ReplyDelete- Kyla Cooper
DeleteIt was interesting learning about the minor details of the wolf as I didn't really know much about it. I also was shocked by the small number of wolves' occupying the large area of land.
ReplyDelete-Lauren Danna
I found it interesting to see how much of an impact human interaction has made on the red wolf species with habitat destruction and hunting. It was surprising that hunters target the red wolf for its rarity because I would expect them to conserve the species for that reason instead. Hopefully the recovery plan provides the species with a stable population.
ReplyDelete-Erika DiLeva
It was incredibly shocking to read that only 45 wolves are left within the 1.7 million acre land habitat and that there are 207 captive wolves in breeding facilities. We learned in class how hunting of wolves is a great issue, but it is so surprising to read that it still happens in our country and the large impact it has on these species' survival.
ReplyDelete-Anna Donaldson