Common Name: Red Wolf
Scientific Name: Canis rufus

Current Status: Listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

Population*: There was an estimate of a total of 245 individuals by the end of August 1999. About 83 red wolves were estimated to make up the wild population in northeastern North Carolina, while the remaining 162, were located throughout 34 captive-breeding facilities.

Habitat:

Range: Reintroduced to northeastern North Carolina since 1987, currently roaming freely over a total of 560,000 acres (3 national wildlife refuges, a U.S. Air Force bombing range, and approximately 200,000 acres of private land). In 1991, released into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (520,000 acre) of eastern Tennessee. A few were also released into coastal islands of Florida, Mississippi, and South Carolina.

Historic Range: The original red wolf range is believed to have extended throughout the Southeast, from the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts in the east, the Ohio River valley and central Pennsylvania in the north, and finally to central Texas and souteastern Missouri in the west. Some biologists believe that they lived as far north as southeastern Canada.

Description: Usually brown colored with black running along their backs, sometimes reddish tones behind ears, on muzzles, and toward backs of legs also. Their ears are tall and pointed, their legs long, and their feet large. As adults, red wolves stand at about 26 inches at the shoulders, and when measured from the tip of the nose to the end of the tail, are about 4 feet long. An average adult male might weigh in at 61 pounds, while their female counterparts may weigh considerably less, at about 52 pounds.

Diet: Individual red wolves consume about 2-5 pounds of food per day. A study of about 2,200 scats/feces of wild red wolves located in northeastern North Carolina, gave an estimate of what they eat on a normal basis. About 50 percent of their diet consisted of white-tailed deer, 30 percent raccoons, and 20 percent small mammals (ie. rabbits, rodents, and nutria). Less than 2 percent were of domestic pets, livestock, and nonmammalian prey. However, their diet may vary depending on the availability of prey and the nature of the environment.

Behavior: Because of the location they live in, red wolves do not eat large ungulates (i.e. elk, bison, moose) found in the cold arctic of the North. For this reason, it is believed that red wolves usually hunt for food individually or by pairs, since pack hunting is probably not necessary.

Reproduction:

History: The red wolf was first described by Bartram in 1791. In their early history when thought to be a threat, court records from eastern North Carolina document that wolf bounties were paid from 1768 to 1789. That is, people were rewarded with money for every wolf they killed.

Threats: In-breeding with coyotes, vehicles, intraspecific aggression, drowning, parasites, hunting, trapping, poisoning, habitat destruction

Conservation: From 1974 through 1980, the Service captured as many thought-to-be red wolves as possible. Only 14 of these captured animals met the standard of the species, and forming the captive-breeding program established at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma, Washington. In 1987, the first group of red wolves were released into the wild, at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, North Carolina.

Recovery Plan: