Feds propose end to red wolf protections

Plan is based on 4-year study of ‘experimental population’ of red wolves

RALEIGH, N.C. — It could soon be open season on North Carolina’s critically endangered red wolf population.

Under a new proposal, “there would be no prohibitions on the (taking) of red wolves on nonfederal lands,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced.

In 1973, the red wolf was added to the endangered species list. By 1980, the species was pronounced extinct in the wild.

So, more than 30 years ago, the Fish and Wildlife Service and partner organizations began a program to reintroduce the red wolf into the wild in North Carolina. The species once peaked at 130 wolves in the wild.

But Fish and Wildlife removed rules that made hunting the wolves illegal, so the population has dwindled. Local landowners said that over the years, the wolves depleted livestock and game animals.

Now, with only about 35 wild red wolves left in North Carolina today and another 200 in captivity nationwide, Fish and Wildlife has effectively ended its protective efforts and reintroductions, and proposes shrinking the area red wolves are allowed to exist to a few government-owned areas in Hyde and Dare counties.

The reintroduction program had some success, the federal agency said, but faced “unforeseen challenges,” including hybridization of wolves with coyotes and “conflicts with humans.”

The new rule would restrict the world’s only wild red wolf population to one refuge and a U.S. Air Force bombing range in eastern North Carolina. Previously, the wolves had a five-county Red Wolf Recovery Area.

If a wolf is seen outside those specific areas, it can be legally killed under the proposed rule.

This proposal comes nearly two years after a federal court ordered Fish and Wildlife “to stop capturing and killing nonproblem red wolves” in a lawsuit brought by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife, the Animal Welfare Institute and the Red Wolf Coalition, the SELC said in a news release Wednesday.

“The red wolf recovery program served as a model for reintroduction efforts and was widely celebrated as a success for 25 years before the service began ending its successful conservation actions,” the SELC said.

The new proposal is based on a four-year study of the “nonessential experimental population” of red wolves under the endangered species act, according to Fish and Wildlife. It includes continuing to breed the wolves in captivity — a struggling program — with the intention of releasing the animals into the wild if there are legal areas available.