An Updated Recovery Roadmap To Save Red Wolves
The red wolf (Canis rufus) is an endangered North American species whose habitat has shrunk to coastal areas in southeast Texas and southeast Louisiana due to habitat destruction. In 1973, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) initiated a recovery plan, including a captive breeding program to prevent red wolf extinction. Starting with 14 red wolves, the program grew to nearly 63 wolves by 1984.
In this paper, the FWS explores the history of red wolf protection and outlines new priorities for ensuring the protection of red wolves in the future.
According to the FWS, reintroduction efforts began in eastern North Carolina in 1986. Currently, around 270 red wolves are part of the breeding program. Despite peaking at 100-120 individuals in 2012, the eastern North Carolina population has significantly declined due to human-caused mortality, coyote hybridization, and a limited number of red wolves.
Current efforts focus on establishing new red wolf breeding pairs in eastern North Carolina by limiting coyote hybridization, releasing red wolves, and fostering pups. As of July 2023, there are 23 to 25 red wolves in eastern North Carolina. However, this population faces risks due to low genetic diversity, human-caused mortality, and hybridization with coyotes, and more.
Red wolf viability (i.e., the ability to sustain a population in the wild over time) is evaluated based on the population’s resiliency, redundancy, and representation. Resiliency involves maintaining a population that can establish packs, defend territories, produce viable offspring, and access habitats with enough resources. Representation requires adequate genetic diversity, while redundancy entails multiple resilient populations to protect against catastrophic events.
Based on these concepts, The FWS has proposed the following strategies to recover the red wolf population in North America:
- Expanding red wolf distribution: There needs to be more than one wild red wolf population for redundancy and resiliency. These populations must have access to various suitable habitats and sufficient resources. New sites must be assessed to ensure they are suitable to support species viability. Restoring habitats and addressing climate change effects are also essential.
- Increasing population genetic diversity: The current captive population should be large enough to support multiple wild populations and maximize reproduction, ideally by increasing it to 400 wolves with birthing females increased by 15%. A larger population would allow red wolves to maintain a pack structure, reduce the chance of breeding with coyotes and facilitate population growth. These populations should ideally survive without constant human intervention.
- Establishing Collaborative Conservation Strategies: Successful conservation efforts depend on strong partnerships with different organizations and groups, including Tribal Nations, state wild animal agencies, private landowners and community members, NGOs, wild animal centers, zoological institutions, and researchers. Building trust with these stakeholders and capitalizing on their diverse knowledge and perspectives are critical.
To ensure the success of red wolf recovery, the FWS argues that “Red Wolf Teams” should be established at each reintroduction site to ensure collaboration among all parties. These teams would be responsible for reviewing recovery progress, making recommendations, addressing conflicts, promoting transparency, and developing long-term strategies for red wolf viability.
However, to accomplish this recovery mission, science-based criteria are also necessary to guide conservation efforts. These criteria consider factors important for removing red wolves from the endangered species list and include things like achieving wild population distribution (e.g., establishing three health populations spread across their historical range), ensuring viable and resilient populations (e.g., preserving at least 80% genetic diversity and maintaining stability or growth for ten years), and ongoing management and commitment (e.g., addressing factors that commonly cause wolf population declines).
Finally, the FWS points out that recovering red wolf populations necessitates site-specific management plans, prioritized based on science to ensure success. These actions are categorized by priority as follows:
The FWS estimates that the total cost of implementing these actions to fully recover red wolves would cost approximately $328 million USD. With adequate funding, cooperation from all parties, and full implementation of the agency’s suggested recovery actions, red wolves may be removed from the endangered species list by 2072.