Red wolf breeding pair 11470 & 11872 (Valentine’s Day edition)

As we mentioned in the last blog entry, most of the red wolves being captured and processed in the field right now are being returned to their home range and released.  However, there are special circumstances where we will try to pair up a lone animal with a new mate before release.  In 2012, we experienced 19 red wolf mortalities.  One of these losses was a male breeder paired with a female (11470) in the Northern pack.  To ensure that she is paired with an appropriate mate (another red wolf), we took the opportunity to play matchmatcher with a recent captured male, 11872, who is a young disperser living a neighboring home range. We introduced them to each other in a captive pen first to allow them to meet and investigate the other animal and new surroundings.  Next, they will be moved together and released into her home range.  With any success, they will approve of each other’s company and establish as a new breeding wolf pair!

 11470, a breeding female red wolf. Photo: A. Beyer/USFWS.

 Introduction day in the captive pen. Photo: A. Beyer/USFWS.

  Checking each other out in the captive pen. Photo: A. Beyer/USFWS.

Management Techniques: 2013 Wolf Capture and Processing

Currently, the field biologists of the Red Wolf Recovery Program are spending many hours trapping wild red wolves.  It’s the time of year when efforts are focused on capturing pups from last season in order to assess their health and fit them for a radio-telemetry collar to ensure future monitoring.  To safeguard against poor collar fit, we wait until pups are approximately 8-9 months old and have reached their full size.  Once a red wolf is captured via a soft-catch steel leg-hold trap, it is secured in a kennel and transported to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Red Wolf Education and Health Care Facility.  Here, it is processed and held prior to its release.

Wild red wolves are instinctively fearful of humans and are generally docile when handled. A wolf is typically restrained by placing a muzzle over its mouth, tying or holding its hind legs together, and keeping a hand on its shoulder to hold it down. All precautions are taken to maximize the safety of the wolf as well as the biologists handling the wolf. 

Wolf biologists performing a health check and fitting a red wolf for

a radio-telemetry collar.  Photos by C. Lucash/USFWS.

Processing involves recording the wolf’s weight and body measurements, drawing a blood sample for future research, administering vaccines to prevent rabies and other common canid diseases, assessing the overall health of the wolf, and finally, fitting it with either a GPS or VHF radio telemetry collar so that it can be monitored upon release.  This year, Red Wolf Recovery Program biologists are also helping Louisiana State University graduate student, Kristin Brzeski, to collect ectoparasites from a captured wild red wolves. Ectoparasites, such as ticks, are being collected from wolves as part of a larger study examining red wolf immunocompetence (more to come on this research project soon!).  

 Radio-collared red wolf in kennel, waiting for transport and release.  Photo by C. Lucash/USFWS.

After the processing is complete, the wolf is usually transported back to its home range and released (see videos below). In some special cases, biologists can also pair up individuals who have previously lost a mate.  In cases like these, the animals are introduced to each other in a captive pen to hopefully establish a bond and become a breeding pair in the home range of the original wolf. Stay tuned for more details on a pair like this (blog forthcoming on Valentine’s Day)!

 Red wolf releases. Videos by A. Beyer/USFWS.

Views from telemetry flights

Currently the Red Wolf Recovery Program is monitoring ~65 red wild wolves and ~50 sterile coyotes in the field.  To track these radio-collared individuals, we use both aerial and ground telemetry techniques.  Telemetry flights are typically performed 2-3 times/week weather-permitting.  These efforts allow us to identify where collared animals are (and who they're with) on the landscape.  Our field coordinator, Art, snapped a few interesting photos last month during flights: Photo 1) shows the congregation of migratory tundra swans (Cygnus columbianus) on Pungo Lake (Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge) for the winter. At some points during the season, this lake and surrounding area (including Lake Mattamuskett) serves as vital feeding areas for 30,000+ swans.  Photo 2) shows an adult male wolf (shown in red square) resting near a white-tailed deer kill (shown in red circle).  These are tricky to see, but go to show how vigilant and alert the wolf biologists are to monitor from the air!

Photo Credits: A. Beyer/USFWS

2012: The 25th Anniversary of the Reintroduction of Red Wolves to North Carolina

Red wolves arrive at Manteo airport, 1987. Photo: USFWS.

With the close of 2012, we celebrated the 25^th anniversary of the reintroduction of red wolves into the northeastern North Carolina recovery area.  In the fall of 1987, eight wolves were released in Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge and surrounding areas. Over the years, we have faced many challenges, but the red wolf has continued to survive amidst changing habitats, policies, and management.  Today, the Red Wolf Recovery Program is still working towards recovery goals through conservation management, outreach, and education.  We’ve made a lot of progress—with an estimated 100-120 individuals established in the wild, and another 192 wolves in >40 captive breeding facilities participating in the Species Survival Plan program.  However, many factors, including human-caused mortality, continue to threaten the long-term success of the species.  Our overall recovery goals are the following:

1. Establish and maintain at least three red wolf populations via restoration projects within the historic range of the red wolf.   Each population should be numerically large enough to have the potential for allowing natural evolutionary processes to work within the species.   This must be paralleled by the cooperation and assistance of at least 30 captive-breeding facilities in the United States. 
2. Preserve 80% to 90% of red wolf genetic diversity for 150 years.
3. Remove threats of extinction by achieving a wild population of approximately 220 wolves and a captive population of approximately 330 wolves.

There still is a lot of work to do be done to achieve these goals.  We’re grateful for your continued support of red wolf conservation and recovery!!

October 14-20: Wolf Awareness Week and National Wildlife Refuge Week

It’s Wolf Awareness Week! Since 1996, this national event has served to educate folks on the roles wolves play in different natural communities. During Wolf Awareness Week, we encourage you to recognize the importance of wolves as an integral part of our landscapes and to engage others to become interested and active in wolf conservation. Many of our partner organizations are hosting Wolf Awareness Week events and have provided educational resources to continue spreading the word.

[2012 Wolf Awareness Week Poster by Aaron Yount.]

Each year, the Timber Wolf Alliance hosts an art contest to select the vision for the current year's Wolf Awareness Week poster. If you’re interested in ordering this year’s poster, you can request one here.

Wolf Awareness Week is also National Wildlife Refuge Week this year! Since Theodore Roosevelt established the first national wildlife refuge in 1903, the National Wildlife Refuge System has become the nation’s premier habitat conservation network, encompassing 150 million acres in 556 refuges and 38 wetland management districts. You can check out special events and programs through the National Wildlife Refuge System here. Here in North Carolina, the Red Wolf Recovery Program and the Alligator National Wildlife National Refuge will be hosting *free* red wolf howlings on Saturdays, Oct. 13th and 27th at 6:00pm. You are welcome to bring your family and learn about the endangered red wolf during a short presentation and visit to the refuge for a chance to hear the howls of the red wolves.

Endless Summer... at Sandy Ridge

Summer is a time of year when the Red Wolf Recovery Program staff tend to retreat from field work, especially trapping. The heat of the summer months makes trapping both somewhat unproductive and potentially dangerous to a trapped wolf. One project undertaken to pass the summer months was to complete some much needed maintenance work at Sandy Ridge, the captive red wolf facility at Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.

[Before and after photo of the perimeter fence at Sandy Ridge. Photo credit: R. Nordsven/USFWS]

The majority of the maintenance work at Sandy Ridge was completed last summer, just before the arrival of Hurricane Irene (Category 1 hurricane making landfall near Cape Lookout, North Carolina on August 27, 2011). The work involved clearing trees that had grown into pens and through the perimeter fencing, as well as repairing damage to fences from fallen trees. Luckily, none of the trees were as large as the trees that fell during Hurricane Isabel, a Category 2 hurricane that made landfall between Cape Lookout and Ocracoke Island, North Carolina on September 18, 2003.

[Downed tree at Sandy Ridge after Hurricane Isabel 2003. Photo credit: USFWS]

Hurricane Isabel tracked its way across the mainland causing a great deal of damage to the Sandy Ridge facility, uprooting trees and destroying fences and sheds. Unfortunately, one large tree killed a captive red wolf when it fell on the den box where the wolf was riding out the storm. The destruction from Hurricane Isabel required many months of cleanup and repair. Thankfully, Irene proved to be much easier on the Red Wolf Recovery Program staff and wolves. Other than a few downed branches and limbs, the only real damage was to one side of an unoccupied pen that was hit by a fallen tree. Fortunately, this time, no wolves were harmed! -- Ryan

[Destroyed shed at Sandy Ridge after Hurricane Isabel 2003. Photo credit: USFWS]

A Fostering First!

This year marks a first in red wolf pup fostering in the Red Wolf Recovery Program. But first, what is fostering?

Fostering is when pups from one litter (typically a captive-born litter) are placed in another litter (typically a wild-born litter) to be raised by parents that are not their own. Fostering pups from a captive litter to a wild litter has been a successful tool used by the Red Wolf Recovery Program as a means to increase the numbers of wild red wolves and enhance the genetic diversity of the wild population.

[Captive-born red wolf pups soon to be fostered into a wild litter. Photo credit: D. Beeland/USFWS]

The Red Wolf Recovery Program first fostered pups into a wild litter in 2002. A pair of two-week old pups born at the North Carolina Zoological Park were placed in a wild wolf den to be raised alongside the wild pups. The fostering was a success, and subsequent fostering efforts have yielded equal success. In fact, no wild red wolf mother has ever been known to reject a fostered pup, and the fostered pups’ survival rates appear to be equal to that of their wild-born “siblings.”

A few stipulations are adhered to when fostering pups, though. First, the pups are ideally no more than two-weeks of age at the time of the fostering. The mother’s maternal instinct is believed to be very strong with pups of this age, which decreases the likelihood of pup rejection. Also, the pups have limited mobility at this age, increasing the likelihood that they will stay in the den and not wander off before the mother returns. Another stipulation is that the captive-born pups should be very close in age to the wild-born pups. This decreases the likelihood of some of the pups out-competing others for food. Lastly, a potential foster mother is usually selected based on her having a relatively low number of pups in her litter, coupled with her proven ability to have successfully raised a litter in previous years. When combined, these conditions increase the likelihood that the mother wolf will be able to successfully raise a couple of extra pups added to her litter.

[Fostered red wolf pups in a den with their new "siblings." Photo credit: D. Beeland/USFWS]

So, what was so special about fostering pups in 2012? Well, this year we fostered two captive-born pups into a litter of three wild-born pups that were born to a mother that was once a captive-born fostered pup! In addition, two other wild red wolves (1 male and 1 female) that were once fostered pups had litters of their own this year!

These are a few of the great examples of how successful fostering pups has been through the years for the Red Wolf Recovery Program. -- Ryan