Red Wolf – Profile
The coat of the red wolf is tawny-cinnamon mixed with gray and black, and is darkest on the back. Red wolves have a head and body length of 1 – 1.2 m (3.25 – 4′) and a weight of 18 – 41 kg (40 – 90 lb). Given their wide historical distribution, red wolves probably utilized a large suite of habitat types at one time. The species was apparently most numerous in the once extensive bottomland river forests and swamps of the southeastern USA. Red wolves re-introduced into northeastern North Carolina have made extensive use of habitat types ranging from agricultural lands to forest/wetland mosaics.
In the past, the red wolf had been reported to eat animals up to the size of small deer, including pigs; raccoons; muskrats, nutria, and other rodents; and rabbits. It will also eat carrion. Analysis of scat of the current, re-introduced wild population of red wolves indicates that white-tailed deer, raccoon and marsh rabbits are primary year-round food items. Red wolf cubs are born in dens, which can be located in the trunks of hollow trees, stream banks or sand knolls. The dens are either excavated by the wolves or taken over from another animal. The red wolf is primarily nocturnal, but it may increase its daytime activity during the winter. The red wolf is a pack-living animal with a complex social organization, similar to that of the gray wolf. Packs are primarily family groups led by a mated, territorial pair.
The red wolf’s historic range is now thought not only to have included the southeastern USA but also to have extended further north into the northeastern USA and extreme eastern Canada. The red wolf was formerly abundant over the southeastern USA as far west as east-central Texas. By the 1930′s it had been extirpated east of the Mississippi. By the 1960′s only small populations remained in the coastal areas of southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana. In the middle 1970′s, all remaining wild animals were captured and a captive breeding program was initiated. The species was extinct in the wild by 1980. Red wolves raised in the captive breeding program were re-introduced into eastern North Carolina in 1987. Presently, red wolves exist only in a re-introduced population in an area of roughly 6000 sq km (2300 sq mi) on the peninsula in eastern North Carolina between Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds.
Reasons for the red wolf’s decline included hunting, poisoning and trapping (because it was perceived as a threat to livestock, and possibly to people), habitat disruption, and competition and hybridization with the coyote. Hybridization with coyotes, which became well established in northeastern North Carolina during the 1990s, is the primary threat to the current wild species’ existence.
Categories: Rare animals, Red Wolf
