U.S. proposes shrinking last endangered red wolf habitat

RALEIGH, N.C. — The Trump administration announced a proposal Wednesday to shrink the habitat of the only endangered red wolves left in the wild and to give landowners more leeway to kill any of the animals that stray onto private property.

Conservation groups call the proposal an extinction sentence that would doom the very last wild wolves.

“Wolves don’t read maps,” said Ben Prater, southeast program director of the non-profit Defenders of Wildlife.

An estimated 35 wild red wolves remain — all in eastern North Carolina — down from about 120 of the animals a decade ago. Another 200 live in captive-breeding programs.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposal would limit their territory to federal land in two North Carolina counties and lift restrictions on killing any wolves that stray from that area. It would take several months for the proposal to go into effect.

“The proposal incorporates the best available science and biology of the red wolf,” Leopoldo Miranda, an assistant regional director for the agency, told reporters Wednesday.

A recent government report found the declining population was unsustainable and already in danger of vanishing in less than a decade. Once common across the Southeast, the red wolf had been considered extinct in the wild as of 1980. Releases of captive-bred wolves started in 1987.

Currently, property owners across the five counties that are home to the wolves need special permission to kill or trap the animals.