Captive breeding of Mexican gray wolf succeeding
EUREKA, Mo. (AP) — Francisco and Sheila were ideal parents. They raised
25 babies, taught them good survival skills, and sent many of them off to
live on their own.
Francisco and Sheila were Mexican gray wolves, or lobos, part of a
breeding program in Eureka, 20 miles southwest of St. Louis. Though
captive themselves, Francisco and Sheila taught their pups such good wolf
traits that many are thriving in the wild.
Francisco and Sheila were pioneers in a federal program to restore the
endangered Mexican gray wolf, the rarest and most genetically distinct
subspecies of gray wolf in North America. After more than a century of
assault by humans, by the 1970s its population had dwindled to a handful
in its natural range in Mexico and the American Southwest.
Nine of Francisco and Sheila’s offspring were among the first 11
captive-born Mexican gray wolves released in 1998. Both parent wolves have
since died — Francisco at age 14 in December, Sheila at age 16 in June
2000 — but they lived, as captive wolves often do, roughly twice as long
as wolves in the wild. Today the Wild Canid Survival & Research Center in
Eureka estimates that 98 percent of Mexican wolves released in the federal
program are descendants of the prolific lobo pair.
“They’re true heroes,” said Kim Bishop-Scott, assistant director of the
center. “So many of (their) offspring actually made it into the wild. They
sacrificed their freedom for future generations.”
The research center, popularly known as the Wolf Sanctuary, was founded in
1971 by Marlin Perkins, a world-renowned naturalist and former director of
the St. Louis Zoo, and his wife Carol. Besides the Mexican wolf, the
sanctuary works with the endangered red wolf, maned wolf, swift fox and
African wild dogs.
In his travels as host of the Emmy Award-winning “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild
Kingdom,” which debuted in 1963, Perkins observed how poorly predators
like the wolf were faring in the wild. He appreciated the wolf’s role in
the ecosystem years before it became a poster critter for
environmentalists, its howling image featured on calendars and greeting
cards.
Wolves had long been hunted, poisoned and painted as sinister figures in
“Little Red Riding Hood” and other popular lore. “Nobody wanted to work
with wolves,” said Susan Lyndaker Lindsey, the center’s executive
director. “They were the pariah.”
As the Perkinses traveled the wild, the wolf became a “child of their
heart,” she said.
The Perkinses convened a 1971 symposium of biologists doing predator
research. The result was a call for captive breeding. In 1976, the Mexican
wolf was listed as endangered. It remains the world’s most endangered
wolf.
In the late ’70s, the last seven known wolves were captured in the wild or
taken from zoos to begin the breeding program. In 1981, the first
captive-bred litter of Mexican gray wolves produced in the federal program
was born at the Wild Canid Center, and the first release into the wild
took place in 1998. The program is now about halfway to meeting its goal
of a “wild” population of at least 100 wolves over 5,000 square miles of
historic range.
About 250 lobos now live in captivity at 45 U.S. and Mexican facilities.
The Wild Canid Center has produced more puppies and housed more Mexican
grays than any other facility. “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service calls
us the cornerstone of the program,” said Lyndaker Lindsey.
This spring, 19 pups in three litters, which is a world record, were born
there. Six died, and the other 13 will stay with their parents through the
next breeding season, helping to rear the next litter. Some will then be
chosen for release in New Mexico and Arizona.
The Wild Canid Center is located on 63 isolated wooded acres within
Washington University’s Tyson Research Center. The wolves live in large
outdoor enclosures with minimal human contact. They learn to hunt, raise
young, live in natural family packs, and be suspicious of people, which
are all useful skills for the wild.
“We’d much rather have them free, but for a captive life, they have a very
good life,” said Bishop-Scott, the assistant director. “There’s enough
space to explore. They’re in the middle of the woods with natural prey.”
Alpha pairs mate for life, and “all members typically raise pups,” said
Maggie Dwire, a biologist with the recovery program in New Mexico. “It’s
almost comical. They love pups. They bring a lot of playtime to a pack,
climbing on them, pulling on their ears.”
Decisions about mating, movement among the 45 captive-breeding facilities
and releases into the wild are made by a U.S.-Mexican committee of
scientists, land owners and others. They also maintain a genetic database.
A wolf with rare genes — until it had successfully reproduced — would
never be released because of the high risk of mortality in the wild. It’s
not uncommon for freed wolves to be struck by cars or shot by hunters; in
recent weeks, five have died.
Despite the losses, released wolves are reproducing. The recovery program
is gradually moving away from freeing captive-born wolves, as the
population of pups born free takes off.
“We don’t want to build a better wolf,” said species coordinator Peter
Siminski of California. “We want to let nature decide what’s a good wolf
and what’s not through natural selection.”
On the Net:
Wild Canid Survival & Research Center: www.wolfsanctuary.org/
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Mexican wolf recovery program: mexicanwolf.fws.gov/