Wildlife Conservation

12 Pages 3095 Words

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These wolves have been threatened since the early European settlers. When the settlers first came to America, they brought with them guns, plows, axes, poison, and traps. All these played a role in the endangering of the Red Wolf. Also, many people wanted to rid the wolf because they were thought to be a threat to the people. Rewards were offered of twenty dollars for every dead wolf. More and more people took advantage of this reward and began killing off the Red Wolf in large numbers.
Because they were always being hunted, the Red Wolf began to lessen in population. Coyotes began taking over the territory where the numbers were the numbers were declining. The wolves interbred with the Coyotes and the number of “pure” Red Wolves went down even more.
In 1973, the Endangered Species Act was created and the Red Wolf was at the top of the list to begin to recover the population. The new habitats of the Red Wolves were swampy areas that contained many parasites. Most of the wolves were being found to have hookworms and heartworms, which were often fatal for these animals.
The people working to increase the population of the wolves found that captivated wolves can live as many as fifteen years, whereas wolves in the wilderness may only live five years.
In 1973, the Point Defiance Zoo was designated the Red Wolf for their captive breeding program. They tried to work with eighteen of the wolves, but later discovered that only six were “pure”. This was not nearly enough to successfully breed these animals. In 1975, however, the people decided that there was no way to breed the wolves in their natural habitat and their plan was to capture all “pure” Red Wolves and breed them in captivity as quickly as possible. This was a risky decision due to the fact that they knew little about their behavioral traits and how they would mate in captivity.
They continued to capture all the wolves, and despit...