Effort to save wolves is failing, review finds
The federal government’s bid to keep North America’s only distinctive wolf from disappearing in the wild is in deep trouble, according to a review of an endangered species program that was established to save red wolves.
A colony of red wolves reintroduced in North Carolina in 1987 is failing because of poor management and fierce state opposition from game officials and hunters who are killing it, said the five-year review, prepared by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Southeastern Regional Office and released in April.
Red wolves were declared extinct in the wild in the 1970s when their populations were devastated by hunters and their habitat was overtaken by coyotes, but a few were bred in zoos.
After an experimental population was released at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge near the Outer Banks, the group managed to reach an estimated 130 wolves in 2006.
The number now stands at 40, a decline more rapid than even the worst-case scenarios had predicted, federal officials said.
“There is consensus that the current direction and management ... is unacceptable to the Service and stakeholders,” the review said. And “it is obvious that there are significant threats ... in eastern North Carolina and conditions for recovery of the species are not favorable and a self-sustainable population may not be possible.”
Fish and Wildlife vowed to soldier on with its attempt to revive the animals at the refuge, saying it will continue to recognize red wolves “as the species Canis rufus.”
Treating the population as a species puts the agency in defiance of North Carolina wildlife officials and some scientists, who say the animals are a hybrid created either by a union of gray wolves and coyotes or are the remnants of a bygone species of pure coyotes.
The fight over the fate of red wolves is playing out at a time when Republicans in Congress are waging an effort to alter the Endangered Species Act in a way that would make protecting plants and animals more difficult.
For example, proposed legislation would strike down a rule that commands federal officials to conserve species regardless of the economic effect on a community in and around their habitats.
Conservationists say red wolves are the most endangered mammal on the planet, considering that there are 2,000 Bengal tigers in the wild and more than 1,500 giant pandas.
North Carolina’s top wildlife official, Gordon Myers, said it’s time to let red wolves disappear, at least from his state.
Conservationists who criticize Fish and Wildlife’s management of the reintroduction program say the managers were so tightly focused on introducing red wolves that they failed to reach out to residents in the area and attempt to help them appreciate the animals. That allowed opponents to demonize them.
A broader plan to better manage the wolves is expected this summer, said Fish and Wildlife, a division of the Interior Department, but critics say it is clear that the agency’s heart is not in making the reintroduction work.