“We have doomed the wolf not for what it is but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be – the mythologized epitome of a savage, ruthless killer – which is, in reality, no more than a reflected image of ourself.” – Farley Mowat

“Canis rufus (Red Wolf)” (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by ucumari photography

Google Maps. Map of the southern United States, showing the locations of Texas and Louisiana.

The Red Wolf (Canis rufus) is Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List because of a rapid decline in numbers. By the mid-twentieth century, only a single population existed along the coastal border of Louisiana and Texas; soon after, by 1970, this species was considered Extinct in the Wild (Hinton, et al. 2016).

The Red Wolf population was anthropogenically removed from the wild by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [USFWS] when recovery was deemed unlikely because of recurring persecution, disease, and introgressive hybridization with the Coyote (Canis latrans) (Hinton, et al. 2016).

Katie (blog author). 2017. Data source: Hinton, et al. 2016.

Although the cause of Red Wolf deaths from 1987 – 2013 was largely anthropogenic, the Population and Habitat Viability Assessment [PHVA] reported Red Wolf hybridization with the Coyote to be the leading threat to recovery (Hinton, et al. 2016).

If hybridization is an important evolutionary process for speciation, why has it posed a significant threat to the recovery of the Red Wolf? According to Gese, et al. (2015), the continued breeding of two different species over time can result in the transfer of genetic information from one species to another, referred to as introgression. The continued breeding and backcrossing of hybrids and parentals can also lead to the creation of a “hybrid swarm”, which is characterized by major phenotypic differences between each individual. These processes all lead to the weakening and eventual loss of the gene pool of one or both parental species. This is known as genomic extinction. As the gene pool becomes smaller, less genetic variation is present within the population; low genetic variability leads to higher vulnerability to environmental changes.

The USFWS investigated whether capturing and monitoring the number of Red Wolves, Coyotes, and hybrids could be a viable option to prevent the continued introgressive hybridization of Red Wolves (Red Wolf (Canis rufus) 5-Year Status Review: Summary and Evaluation, 2007). This video, produced through the coordinated efforts of Katie (blog author) and Daniel, with information originating from the report, outlines the conservation efforts instituted within the Red Wolf Recovery Experimental Population Area on the Albemarle Peninsula in northeastern North Carolina.

In their investigation, the USFWS and RWAMP found the success of controlling hybridization and facilitating recovery to be varied, based on initial hypotheses. By the end of the investigation, there were progressively more Red Wolf litters than hybrid litters although the ratio of hybrid litters to Red Wolf litters did not decline over time (Gese, et al. 2015). The number of Coyotes and hybrids detected also did not decrease over time. However, the average ancestry of all known and reproductively intact Red Wolves and introgressed individuals was recorded at 96.5% in 2014 (Gese, et al. 2015).

Katie (blog owner). Data Source: USFWS. According to Gese, et al. (2015), the number of adult Red Wolves increased as time progressed, as was initially predicted, but their number plateaued around 2009 and then began to slightly decline.