$2,500 Reward Offered after Critically Endangered Red Wolf Killed in North Carolina

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has issued a $2,500 reward for information about the January 18 shooting death of a critically endangered red wolf ( Canis rufus ) in North Carolina. The wolf, which wore a radio collar around its neck, was at least the 10th member of his species illegally shot and killed in the past 14 months. Fewer than 120 red wolves live in the wild today.The deaths have been a terrible setback for the Red Wolf Recovery Program , which in addition to the wild population also maintains nearly 200 captive wolves in breeding facilities across the country. Red wolves used to live throughout the southeastern U.S. but were hunted into near extinction by the 1960s in order to protect livestock. The last 400 wolves in the region were brought into the captive breeding program in 1973. Most of them were found to be hybrids with coyotes ( C. latrans ), which started migrating to the area in the 1960s, leaving just 14 closely related pureblood individuals to form the founder population from which all of today's wolves are descended. [More]