Administrative Watch: Interior Proposes Dooming Wild Red Wolves
Last week, the Trump Administration announced wildlife management changes which would doom the last wild red wolf population to extinction in the wild.
Killings of endangered red wolves have already reached a point that threatens the survival of their last wild population of about 35 wolves in eastern North Carolina. The new proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would ensure and hasten their demise by shrinking their designated protected habitat to federal land in two counties and lifting the restrictions on killing wolves that stray from that area.
Wildlife conservation advocates say the proposed changes would mark a death knell for wild red wolves. “Limiting red wolves to a sliver of land suitable for only a handful of wolves, while allowing ‘open season’ to kill, trap or capture these highly endangered wolves on non-federal lands in the former Red Wolf Recovery Area, is an abhorrent plan to abandon the wild red wolf, not recover them as required under U.S. law,” said Ramona McGee, attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center.
The announced plan permits only 30 days for public comment. A meeting is set for 5:30-9 p.m., July 10, at Roanoke Island Festival Park in Manteo, North Carolina, to gather public input on the plan. Click here for more information and background on the issue.
