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Email: timberwolfinfonetwork@gmail.com

NC: N.C. residents denounce effort to protect red wolves

By Jeff Hampton
The Virginian-Pilot

SWAN QUARTER, N.C.

Red wolves that exist only in this part of the world are unpopular in these parts.

About 100 people packed into the Mattamuskeet Early College High School cafeteria Wednesday, nearly all denouncing recovery efforts by saying the wolves don’t exist as a pure species, so why protect this mixed breed.

“All we have here is a super coyote,” said landowner Roger Seale.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service contracted a nonprofit from Virginia for $175,000 to evaluate the 27-year-old venture to save the last wild red wolves on 1.7 million acres in northeastern North Carolina.

By Oct. 10, the Wildlife Management Institute will analyze the science, how the program is run and public attitude. The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission requested the review in June. The recovery was supposed to be self-sustaining and remain on federal lands. Neither has happened, according to a letter from the state to the federal wildlife agency June 2.

Results of the evaluation could determine whether wild red wolf restoration efforts continue.

Forum leaders got plenty of public attitude Wednesday from farmers, landowners and residents in Hyde and surrounding counties.

“This program will eventually self-destruct,” said landowner Jett Ferebee. “I think reasonable people could get together and agree this has failed.”

Speakers’ complaints ranged from red wolves taking livestock and game and threatening small pets to the fear of coyote hybrids spreading because efforts to sterilize them have been unsuccessful.

A few supporters attended the forum, some traveling long distances. Janet Hoben of the National Wolfwatcher Coalition flew from Los Angeles.

“To go from zero red wolves to 100, I would hardly call that an experiment,” she said.

Jack Dafoe of the Southern Environmental Law Center objected to a public meeting where local landowners dominate.

After attending, “our concerns are even greater,” he said.

North Carolina State University professor James Gilliam proposed erecting a fence around the refuge to keep wolves in and coyotes out.

Accounts from the 1700s indicate red wolves once roamed the southeastern United States. The rare predator was listed as an endangered species in 1967, with the last packs living along the Gulf Coast. Biologists trapped and tested bloodlines of about 400 red wolves and found 17 purebreds. The species was declared extinct in the wild in 1980. Four captive-born pairs were introduced into the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in 1987.

The population grew for years before falling in 2013 to fewer than 100 for the first time in more than a decade. Seven litters produced 34 pups in 2013, the least successful breeding season in years.

Coyotes invaded the area, inbreeding with wolves. Hunters and others shot wolves after North Carolina allowed night hunting of coyotes. Environmental groups sued the state. A judge ruled in May that the state cannot allow coyote hunting in the five counties where red wolves live while the lawsuit is ongoing.

Ferebee has spent 15 years contending with federal wildlife officials over the wolf program. He went to the microphone more than once Wednesday.

Among his points: Coyotes outnumber wolves 3 to 1 in the five-county area. Biologists have told him they cannot control the influx of coyotes – their numbers have greatly increased in spite of a sterilization program.

Ferebee told the crowd he had captured five red wolves, 11 coyote hybrids and two sterilized coyotes in 30 days on his farm.

Another public forum took place Thursday in Columbia. The Fish and Wildlife Service plans to make a decision on the red wolf recovery program by next year.

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