Endanger Species : Red Wolf
Also known as the Florida wolf or Mississippi Valley wolf. Traditionally, they were top predators who helped balance the forest ecosystem by keeping other animal populations in check. Despite restoration efforts, red wolves' fate still hangs in the balance today, threatened mainly by human activity and interbreeding with coyotes.
Red wolves play an important role in the temperate deciduous ecosystem. They prey on nuisance animals, like rabbits, deer and small rodents, that cause damage to crops, levees, roads and farm equipment. If nuisance animals are not kept in check by predators, they may in turn deplete levels of their own prey, such as birds and turtles. So a healthy red wolf population helps to keep the entire food chain in balance.
Activists identify the most significant threats to red wolf populations today as illegal shootings, interbreeding with coyotes and competition for home territory and prey. Efforts to protect and restore red wolf populations are aimed at increasing the number of both wild and captive wolves while also monitoring the gene pool. Current objectives include restoring red wolf populations in areas they occupied in the past in order to allow natural evolution to resume, maintaining 80 to 90 percent of the wolf's genetic diversity for 150 years and preserving the wolf's future by cryogenically freezing embryos and sperm.
Red wolves play an important role in the temperate deciduous ecosystem. They prey on nuisance animals, like rabbits, deer and small rodents, that cause damage to crops, levees, roads and farm equipment. If nuisance animals are not kept in check by predators, they may in turn deplete levels of their own prey, such as birds and turtles. So a healthy red wolf population helps to keep the entire food chain in balance.
Activists identify the most significant threats to red wolf populations today as illegal shootings, interbreeding with coyotes and competition for home territory and prey. Efforts to protect and restore red wolf populations are aimed at increasing the number of both wild and captive wolves while also monitoring the gene pool. Current objectives include restoring red wolf populations in areas they occupied in the past in order to allow natural evolution to resume, maintaining 80 to 90 percent of the wolf's genetic diversity for 150 years and preserving the wolf's future by cryogenically freezing embryos and sperm.