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Carnivorous and Omnivores Animals, Excluding Felids
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Canids (Canidae) & Hyaenids (Hyaenidae)
Red Wolf (Canis rufus)
Red Wolf (Canis rufus)
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Red Wolf (Canis rufus)
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The United States of America has some conservation success stories, like the Bald Eagle and the American Alligator, which were once on the Endangered Species List, but are now doing great thanks to good wildlife conservation. However, there are some animals in the USA that are still hanging in there, like the Red Wolf. Once common, now they're critically endangered, with only 40 individuals left in the wild according to recent news, so this thread is purely dedicated to anything on the Red Wolf.
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/esa_works/profile_pages/RedWolf.html Bumped into this as well.
My mistake, turns out there's only 35 of these left in the wild. Not 40, my bad.
WASHINGTON, DC
JUNE 19, 2019 The Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife today filed a formal notice of intent to sue the Trump administration for failing to prepare an updated recovery plan for the United States’ rapidly dwindling population of endangered red wolves. In response to a 2016 petition for a revised recovery plan filed by animal protection and conservation organizations, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service pledged to update the wolf’s decades-old recovery plan by the end of last year. It has not done so. “The red wolf can be saved, but if the Trump administration won’t update its severely outdated recovery plan, this animal could be lost forever,” said Collette Adkins, the Center’s carnivore conservation director. “I'm hopeful this lawsuit will spur a new plan where science, not politics, drives management of the world’s most endangered wolf.” The Endangered Species Act requires that the Fish and Wildlife Service prepare plans that serve as roadmaps to species recovery, identifying measures needed to ensure conservation and survival. The Service last updated the red wolf’s recovery plan in 1990. Since then red wolves have faced changes in their management and additional threats from increased poaching and hybridization with coyotes. “We are asking the Trump administration to move red wolf conservation forward and end this unnecessary and dangerous delay,” said Jason Rylander, senior endangered species counsel at Defenders of Wildlife. “Without meaningful action this iconic species could go extinct in the wild. That would be a huge loss.” The red wolf has been reduced to a single population in eastern North Carolina with as few as 18 known individuals left. Last year the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to eliminate at least half of the wild population and reduce by more than 90 percent the recovery area where the wolves can safely roam. The agency has stopped taking actions necessary for red wolf recovery, such as its coyote-sterilization program to prevent hybrid animals from harming the gene pool. Today’s notice letter starts a 60-day clock after which the conservation groups can file their lawsuit to compel the Fish and Wildlife Service to comply with the Endangered Species Act.
Judge Orders Plan for Releasing More Red Wolves Into Wild
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. U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle signed an order Thursday directing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to draft a plan by March 1 for releasing captive-bred wolves into the wolves’ designated habitat in North Carolina. The preliminary ruling comes in a lawsuit filed late last year by red wolf conservation groups in a federal court in North Carolina, the only place in the world where the wolf roams wild outside of zoos or wildlife refuges. Noting that as few as seven wild red wolves remain, Boyle said in his ruling that “plaintiffs have demonstrated that extinction is a very real possibility in this case.” The lawsuit had argued that the federal wildlife officials had violated the Endangered Species Act through actions that included a decision in 2015 to stop releasing captive-bred wolves to bolster the wild population. Since then, the federal agency has released one wolf from a wildlife refuge into the North Carolina habitat about a year ago. Lawyers for the Fish and Wildlife Service have argued in the case that the Endangered Species Act gives it “broad discretion in determining how to factor endangered species conservation into their decision making.” A spokesman for the agency didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment late Friday afternoon. The wolf conservation groups that took the federal agency to court praised Boyle’s decision. “We are grateful that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will finally abide by its responsibility to protect this critically endangered wolf,” Ben Prater, Southeast program director at Defenders of Wildlife, said in a statement. “Releasing wolves into the wild is a common sense, science-backed approach to boost this population and stave off the red wolf’s extinction. While the species has a long way to go, this is a major step in the right direction.” Red wolves once occupied much of the Eastern U.S. but were driven to near extinction by trapping, hunting and habitat loss before they were reintroduced to North Carolina in 1987. Their range is limited to five North Carolina counties. Scientists at zoos and other sites have maintained a captive population of about 200 wolves in recent years. 
An Historical View: A Look Back at the Red Wolf in Louisiana and Texas, with The Canid Project
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