SELC uses the power of the law to champion all the things you love about the South: clean water, healthy air, mountains, forests, rural countryside, and the coast.
A red wolf. Photo: Sam Bland
RALEIGH Hanging on by a Darwinian thread in northeastern North Carolina, the world’s only known wild red wolves may soon get a population boost, with a federal judge ruling late last week that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must again release captive-bred red wolves into the management area.
With only seven collared and about a dozen or so untagged wild red wolves remaining in the management area, 1.7 million acres of public and private land in Beaufort, Dare, Hyde, Tyrrell and Washington counties, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina Judge Terrence Boyle sided with conservation groups, ruling that the agency was “likely” in violation of the Endangered Species Act and must take immediate actions to save the species.
A female red wolf emerges from her den sheltering newborn pups at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, N.C. in May 2019. (AP Photo: Gerry Broome)
There are Only Seven Known Red Wolves Left in the Wild. That’s About to Change in North Carolina. PUBLISHED 10:45 AM ET Jan. 26, 2021 PUBLISHED 10:45 AM EST Jan. 26, 2021
SHARE
Red wolves were essentially extinct in the wild until a federal program began releasing a couple of captive wolves each year in eastern North Carolina more than three decades ago. The wild population grew to more than 100, and they were having pups on their own.
A judge has ordered the federal government to come up with a plan to release more endangered red wolves from breeding programs to bolster the dwindling wild population.
A judge has ordered the federal government to come up with a plan to release more endangered red wolves from breeding programs to bolster the dwindling wild population.