The endangered Red wolves got some good news this month after a federal judge ordered the US Fish and Wildlife Service to begin releasing wolves from captive breeding programs back into the wild.
The red wolf once roamed much of the southeastern United States, but was declared extinct in 1980.
Fourteen remaining red wolves were captured in Texas and Louisiana before the extinction declaration and were used to establish a breeding program in locations including St. Vincent Island in Franklin County.
In 2012 the red wolf population grew to more than 130 animals covering five eastern North Carolina counties.
In recent years nearby landowners pushed the government to abandon recovery efforts so that in 2019 there were no breeding pairs in North Carolina, and only seven known red wolves are believed to remain.
Judge Terrence Boyle of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina said in his ruling that “Failing to release additional wolves, from either the captive population or wild population at St. Vincent National Wildlife Refuge, will all but certainly result in the extinction of the red wolf in the wild in North Carolina.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service has until March 1st to come up with a new plan to begin releasing wolves again in eastern North Carolina.
The agency’s plan must include metrics that will be used to measure performance, which must be provided to the court at a joint status update in six months.
No comments:
Post a Comment