BY BRUCE SICELOFF
Aiming to reduce the shooting deaths of endangered red wolves in five Eastern North Carolina counties, conservation groups and the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission have agreed on new rules to limit hunting of the wolves’ non-endangered look-alikes: coyotes.
Permitting and reporting will be required for daytime hunting of coyotes, and nighttime hunting with spotlights will be banned in the five counties – Dare, Hyde, Washington, Tyrrell and Beaufort – that make up the five-county Red Wolf Recovery Area. The area is home to the world’s only wild population of red wolves, estimated at about 100.
Gunshot is the leading cause of death for red wolves. Hunting the wolves is illegal, but the animals are frequently mistaken for coyotes. Fifty-one red wolves have been killed by confirmed or suspected gunshot since 2008, some by hunters who told authorities they thought they were killing coyotes.
The new rules for coyote hunting are part of a settlement agreement stemming from a lawsuit in which conservations groups charged that the state was violating the federal Endangered Species Act by allowing coyote hunting. The Southern Environmental Law Center announced that the settlement had been approved in U.S. District Court for North Carolina’s Eastern District.
“A ban on spotlight hunting of coyotes at night and better management of coyote hunting in the Red Wolf Recovery Area are common sense steps to increase safety and help protect these rare wolves,” said Sierra Weaver, a Southern Environmental Law Center attorney representing the Red Wolf Coalition, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) in the case.
“We look forward to working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission to protect wild red wolves for future generations,” Weaver said.