Rangeland Ecology & Management

Get reliable science

Wolf Recovery

Red Wolf

Photo by:
  • Body



    Red wolves (Canis rufus) were listed as endangered in 1967.  Recovery efforts attempted to locate the rare (perhaps nonexistent) wild red wolves in the southeastern United States.  Instead, coyotes (which share a home range with the red wolf) with the strongest red wolf characteristics were bred in a captive breeding program and released on the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina.  This Wildlife Refuge is located on an island, which helps to avoid hybridization with coyotes.  As of 2014, there are about 100 red wolves in the wild. "Red Wolf Howl" by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters is licensed to CC BY 2.0