Since then, the federal agency has released one wolf from a wildlife refuge into the North Carolina habitat about a year ago. The lawsuit had argued that the federal wildlife officials had violated the Endangered Species Act through actions that included a decision in 2015 to stop releasing captive-bred wolves to bolster the wild population. Noting that as few as seven wild red wolves remain, Boyle said in his ruling that “plaintiffs have demonstrated that extinction is a very real possibility in this case.” The preliminary ruling comes in a lawsuit filed late last year by red wolf conservation groups in a federal court in North Carolina, the only place in the world where the wolf roams wild outside of zoos or wildlife refuges. Fish and Wildlife Service to draft a plan by March 1 for releasing captive-bred wolves into the wolves’ designated habitat in North Carolina. District Judge Terrence Boyle signed an order Thursday directing the U.S. Judge Orders Plan for Releasing More Red Wolves Into WildĪ judge has ordered the federal government to come up with a plan to release more endangered red wolves from breeding programs to bolster the dwindling wild population. Today’s notice letter starts a 60-day clock after which the conservation groups can file their lawsuit to compel the Fish and Wildlife Service to comply with the Endangered Species Act. The agency has stopped taking actions necessary for red wolf recovery, such as its coyote-sterilization program to prevent hybrid animals from harming the gene pool. Last year the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to eliminate at least half of the wild population and reduce by more than 90 percent the recovery area where the wolves can safely roam. The red wolf has been reduced to a single population in eastern North Carolina with as few as 18 known individuals left. “Without meaningful action this iconic species could go extinct in the wild.
“We are asking the Trump administration to move red wolf conservation forward and end this unnecessary and dangerous delay,” said Jason Rylander, senior endangered species counsel at Defenders of Wildlife. Since then red wolves have faced changes in their management and additional threats from increased poaching and hybridization with coyotes. The Service last updated the red wolf’s recovery plan in 1990. The Endangered Species Act requires that the Fish and Wildlife Service prepare plans that serve as roadmaps to species recovery, identifying measures needed to ensure conservation and survival.
“I'm hopeful this lawsuit will spur a new plan where science, not politics, drives management of the world’s most endangered wolf.”
#CANIS RUFUS UPDATE#
“The red wolf can be saved, but if the Trump administration won’t update its severely outdated recovery plan, this animal could be lost forever,” said Collette Adkins, the Center’s carnivore conservation director. Fish and Wildlife Service pledged to update the wolf’s decades-old recovery plan by the end of last year. In response to a 2016 petition for a revised recovery plan filed by animal protection and conservation organizations, the U.S. The Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife today filed a formal notice of intent to sue the Trump administration for failing to prepare an updated recovery plan for the United States’ rapidly dwindling population of endangered red wolves.