Feds abandon plan to shrink habitat of rare red wolves

Feds abandon plan to shrink habitat of rare red wolves

BY JONATHAN DREW ASSOCIATED PRESS
NOVEMBER 11, 2021 7:25 PM


FILE - A female red wolf emerges from her den sheltering newborn pups at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, N.C., on May 13, 2019. Federal wildlife officials overseeing the world's only wild population of endangered red wolves announced Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2021, that they are abandoning a 2018 plan to limit the animals' territory and loosen protections for wolves that strayed from that area. . (AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File) GERRY BROOME AP

Federal wildlife officials overseeing the world's only wild population of endangered red wolves announced Wednesday that they are abandoning a 2018 plan to limit the animals' territory and loosen protections for wolves that strayed from that area.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made the announcement as part of an ongoing federal court battle with conservation groups that argue the federal agency violated the Endangered Species Act by abandoning strategies that supported the wild population of wolves. Conservation groups welcomed the move but said more needs to be done to bolster a wild population of as few as 10 wolves.

A news release from the federal wildlife agency said that it will follow prior rules that recognize a five-county area in eastern North Carolina as wolf habitat, the only place in the world where the wolf roams wild outside of zoos or wildlife refuges. The 2018 proposal would have limited the wolves to two counties and given landowners more leeway to kill wolves that strayed onto private property outside that zone.

In the statement, federal wildlife officials also affirmed the agency's authority to release more wolves from captivity to buttress the wild population. Federal officials have resumed releases of captive-bred wolves after U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle ordered the government in January to come up with a plan to put more wolves from captive breeding programs into the wild. Prior to the ruling, the practice had largely been halted in recent years.

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