Wolves kill.
They tear the flesh of other animals, often much larger than themselves. They rip apart and eat the bloody carcass. They hunt and feed in packs. Their howls dominate the uncivilized night. We fear wolves. They are powerful enough to kill and eat us European folk tradition is vivid in recounting tales of, wolves attacking humans, American wolves have been involved in documented attacks on cattle and other livestock.

We love wolves.
They are fierce, independent hunters. They are intelligent. They mate for life, live in family groups, and care for their young. Wolf societies' remind us of our own.

We kill wolves.
Bounties have been offered for American wolf pelts by various government agencies from 1695 until 1965. We have done an efficient job of eliminating wolves from nearly all portions of the lower 48 states.

We welcome wolves into our homes.
Dogs were domesticated from wild wolves and are not genetically distinct from wolves. Many of the dog behaviors we admire most are wolf behaviors. Collies and poodles are wolves. The wolf is the original dog

Unspecialized breeds of dog, such as huskies and. german shepherds, most closely resemble wolves. Specialized breeds of dogs have been developed through artificial selection: choosing animals with desired traits and breeding them with animals having similar traits in the hope of further developing these traits in the offspring.

Wolves have been developed through natural selection. Those animals better adapted for survival in a local environment have left more descendants to perpetuate their traits. Over time, regional differences in appearance and behavior have developed among wolves as populations have adapted to local environmental conditions.

The Gray Wolf (Canis lupus) was at one time the most widely distributed land mammal on earth, It was found across North America, Europe and Asia, occupying basically all non-desert land areas of these continents north of about 20 degrees latitude. Over this vast territory a number of varieties, or subspecies, developed. At least 32 subspecies of Canis lupus have been named, no less than 24 of these in North America.

Today, the wolf has been eliminated from civilized portions of its former range. On our continent wild wolves exist today only in Alaska, Canada, and the northern portions of . those states bordering Canada. And in two locations in North Carolina.

Wild wolves have been released in recent years in the Alligator River Wildlife Refuge in Eastern North Carolina and in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The wolves released in these areas are not Gray Wolves but the Red Wolf (Canis rufus), a southeastern form being rescued from extinction through the federal Red Wolf Recovery Program.

Red Wolf is the name given to the wolves which formerly inhabited the southeastern United States. They were intermediate in size between Coyotes and Grray Wolves and distinguished from them by skull and dental characteristics. They have been extinct in the wild since 1975. Those animals in the Red Wolf Recovery Program are descendants of 14 Red Wolves captured along the Texas Coast near the Louisiana border in the early 1970's.

The Nature Center currently exhibits 2 of the approximately 200 Red Wolves which have been bred in captivity from the original stock of 14 Texas wolves. Offspring from the Nature Center's pair will be released into the wild or used for further captive breeding.

There has been, and continues to be, debate in the scientific community over the specific status of the Red Wolf. Whether the Red Wolf is a separate species of wolf, a small variety of the Gray Wolf, a large variety of Coyote., or a hybrid between wolves and coyotes is presently uncertain.

Several early explorers of the Southeast noted that wolves of this region seemed smaller than the common wolves of New England and Canada. This is not unusual, for throughout the circumpolar range of the wolf northern animals tend to be larger than their southern counterparts. The largest wolves in Alaska, Canada, and Russia may weigh up to 175 pounds while the average weight of wolves occupying middle latitudes ranges from 55-65 pounds for a female and 75-95 pounds for a male. Wolves weighing as little as 30 pounds have been reported from the area between Israel and Iran.

William Bartram, the Philadelphia naturalist who visited the southeast in the late 1700's referred.to the Black Wolves he saw in Florida as -"Lupis niger". Audubon and Blackman, in their book "The Quadrupeds of North America" published in 1851, listed the "Black -American Wolf" as being native from Florida to southern Indiana and Missouri and the "Red Texas Wolf" as being found in Texas, Arkansas, and northern Mexico. Both of these forms were listed as varieties of the Gray Wolf, Canis lupus.

In 1937 Edward Goldman combined the wolves of the South central and southeastern United States into a single species which he named Canis rufus, the Red Wolf. He listed three subspecies. Canis rufus rufus for the Red Texas Wolf of Audubon and Blackman, Canis rufus floridanus for the Black Florida Wolf of Bartram and Canis rufus gregoryi for a new subspecies in the lower Mississippi valley. These names are still considered valid and are the basis for actively breeding and releasing Red Wolves under the mandate of the Endangered Species Act.

Our knowledge of the Red Wolf is derived mainly from the Texas Red Wolf, Canis rufus rufus. The other two subspecies were exterminated before field studies could be made, and apparently left behind very little evidence of their existence - only 4 specimens in museum collections from the range of these two races of wolves.

The Texas Red Wolf, on the other hand, existed in the wild until 1975. Many skull specimens were obtained for museum collections and live animals were captured for study and inclusion into the Red Wolf Recovery Program. This, the smallest of the Red Wolf subspecies, is most different in appearance from the Gray Wolf. In fact, the Texas Red Wolf so resembles the Coyote that it was difficult for biologists, to distinguish the two in the field. Of more than 400 animals captured during the initial phase of the Red Wolf Recovery Program, only 14 were determined to be pure Red Wolves rather than Coyotes or Coyote-wolf hybrids.

The fact that the Texas Red Wo1f so resembles the Coyote and interbreeds with the Coyote has lead some biologists to regard the Red Wolf as nothing more than a large variety of Coyote or as a Wolf-coyote hybrid. Similarly, the two eastern subspecies of Red Wolf, which more closely approach the average size of the Gray Wolf, are sometimes regarded as merely varieties or subspecies of the Gray Wolf. Indeed, if the Red Wolf species was based on Florida specimens only, it is unlikely to have achieved more than subspecies separation from the Gray Wolf.

The Texas situation is unique. Here the eastern edge of the range of the Coyote meets the western edge of the range of the Red Wolf I and both overlap with the range of the Gray Wolf. Hybridization among the three similar canids occurs. Here was named the only wolf variety in Eurasia or North America to be classified as an entirely separate species from the Gray Wolf. The Red Wolf of Texas has been aptly described as "the mystery wolf".

In a recent attempt to clarify the relationship between Red Wolves, Gray Wolves, and Coyotes, scientists have begun analyzing genetic material from the three species. The researchers compared sequences of DNA obtained from mitochondria (energy-producing sub-cellular organelles) of captive Red Wo1ves with samples taken from 327 Coyotes and 276 Gray Wolves from throughout North America.

The results were unexpected, the Red Wolves all had mitochondrial DNA indistinguishable from that of Coyotes.

Since captive Red Wolves are all descendants of 14 individuals representing only 4 matrilines, it is possible that hybridization with Coyotes might have resulted in loss of Red Wolf mitochondrial DNA in this population.

Therefore., the tests were repeated using DNA obtained from blood samples taken from Red Wolves in the 1970's and again with DNA samples obtained from museum pelts of Red Wolves collected from five southeastern states between 1905 and 1930 (before exfensive hybridization is thought to have occurred).

The results of these tests again produced no genetic marker unique to Red Wolves. Instead all Red Wolf mitochondrial genotypes were classed either with existing Coyote or existing Gray Wolf.genotypes.

The mystery wolf thus remains a mystery. Perhaps. the Red Wolf is the result of hybridization between Gray Wolves and Coyotes. Perhaps the Red Wolf is a unique species which has only recently fallen victim to near eradication followed by extensive hybridization.

Perhaps eastern Red Wolves are really a small variety of Gray Wolf and western Red Wolves are really large Coyotes. Perhaps the Red Wolf is an ancient species and is the progenitor of both the Coyote and Gray Wolf.

Research on this topic continues. Workers are currently analyzing nuclear DNA from the three species, seeking clear genetic markers. Meanwhile, the captive Red Wolf population continues to grow.

Is the Red Wolf a species worth saving? Is the Red Wo1f even a species? Is it being saved because it is unique or because we love, fear, and admire it? Would we go to the same effort for a less glamorous species? How hard would we work for an endangered cockroach, a threatened roundworm, or a vanishing crayfish?

Are we saving the Red Wolf as a species or as a symbol? Is it for our benefit or the wolf's benefit that we unlock the cage? Whose life are we saving? Perhaps the answer is contained in the uncivilized howl in the wilderness night.