Four new red wolves come to Cape Romain
Associated Press
CHARLESTON, S.C. – Four new red wolves now make the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge their home and biologists hope they will have pups this spring, helping to increase the population of the endangered species.
The human intervention is designed to help the species survive. The federal Red Wolf Recovery Program carefully tracks genetics and use computers to match wolves.
A new 2-year-old female and an 8-year-old male, which has roamed Bulls Island for two years, were vaccinated and released in the wild last week at Cape Romain.
Two other newcomers are matched with wolves at the Sewee Center near Awendaw, just northeast of Charleston.
And a 9-year-old female arrived on Bulls Island in October to join a lone wolf, a male born on Bulls Island ten years ago. He lived at Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge near Manteo, N.C., for several years but has lived in an enclosure on Bulls Island since 1996.
He didn’t have pups with his first mate so biologists have chosen a new female in hopes they will reproduce.
The most recent wolves born on Bulls Island, a male and a female born in 2001, recently met wolves at Alligator River, where both pairs could have pups in the wild this spring.
Alligator River, where about 100 red wolves live in the wild, is the only place on the mainland wolves are released and the place where more than one pair roams free.
Red wolves also live in 37 zoos and other facilities in this country and one in Canada. Alligator River, Cape Romain and St. Vincent National Wildlife Refuge off the Florida panhandle have wolves in both in wild and in captivity.
“Every year a decision is made across the facilities to pair wolves to maximize the genetic diversity and conserve that maximum as long as possible,” said Bud Fazio, team leader of the recovery program.
That means checking lineage carefully, separating couples that didn’t bear young and introducing strangers usually as breeding season begins.