The Museum of Life and Science will bid farewell to its family of seven critically endangered red wolves on Oct. 22 as part of an exchange with the Wolf Conservation Center in New York. In return, the museum received a new breeding pair of red wolves: Oka and Martha. 

Red wolves are the most endangered wolves in the world, with fewer than 20 individuals surviving in the wild. About 290 are kept in captivity to preserve the species. The Museum of Life and Science is one of 45 facilities that house these rare wolves, which are only found in the wild in North Carolina. 

“The only place they roam free and wild on the entire planet is here in the state,” said Sherry Samuels, the Senior Director of Animal Care at the museum. “So that’s pretty special as a North Carolinian to be part of that recovery program.” 

Adeyha and Oak welcomed a litter of seven pups in late April. Two of the pups later died. The remaining pups, Juniper, Cedar, Sassafras, Maple, and Tupelo, are now nearly the size of their parents. The whole family will remain together at the Wolf Conservation Center in an enclosure three times larger than their previous one.

“It’s going to be much better for them,” Samuels said prior to the move. 

Unlike their previous home at the Museum of Life and Science, the family’s new home is off exhibit. Only visible to the public via webcam, their new enclosure features over an acre of woodland with minimal human contact.

“We try to keep them as wild as possible,” Dana Goin, Program Coordinator and Wildlife Educator at the Wolf Conservation Center, said. “We keep as much vegetation in there as we can. We really try and disturb it as little as physically possible.”

According to Goin, the red wolves’ new enclosure will give them the opportunity to explore their wild instincts. While large game like deer cannot get into the enclosure, smaller animals like squirrels and even turkeys from the neighboring nature preserve often do. These unfortunate intruders will give the young wolves and their parents the opportunity to explore and hunt in a natural setting. 

Martha, the female who just arrived the Museum of Life and Science, was born at the Wolf Conservation Center to longtime resident Veronica and her mate, Sam. Both parents came from the Museum of Life and Science. Martha is the last of her litter to leave the Wolf Conservation Center, having lived there her entire life.

“It’ll be really bittersweet to see her go, but I do think it’s kind of a nice full circle moment that she’s going somewhere where her parents and her older siblings came from,” Goin said.

Exchanges like this are vital to red wolf conservation efforts. Every summer, the Red Wolf Saving Animals From Extinction (SAFE) program holds a conference to determine the best pairings to maximize reproductive success and to prevent harmful mutations in such a small population. The SAFE program has a “stud book” containing the complete genetic profile of each individual wolf. This, along with habitat and compatibility considerations, is used to determine what wolves need to be re-paired or moved. This summer, the SAFE program determined that Oak and Adeyha are a genetically valuable pair and will stay together for at least another year. 

“Durham has been successful in the past in breeding animals, and Sherry Samuels and her staff do a wonderful job, but they had a really large litter,” Chris Lasher, Ex-situ Population Manager for the American Red Wolf SAFE Program explained the decision to move the family.

Keeping the family together mimics the species’s natural social behaviors, where pups will stay with their parents and help raise their next litter of pups until they reach maturity and disperse to form their own family groups.

“A lot of what the puppies do when they get older, they’re learning from mom and dad. And then if we do have a second litter, the first litter will also teach the second litter how to be wolves. So it’s a really cool situation,” Lasher said.

Keeping red wolves as wild as possible both in terms of habitat and social behaviors makes them better suited to life in the wild, which is the ultimate goal of the SAFE program. 

“We don’t want wolves living behind a fence. We want them living in the wild. That’s where they belong,” Goin said.

The path to recovery for the red wolf is uncertain. Wolf conservation efforts have long been subject to the ebb and flow of political whims, and released red wolves are vulnerable to illegal shooting and vehicle collisions. Even so, the SAFE program remains committed to maintaining a healthy population of red wolves with hopes to return the species to the wild. According to Lasher, there is reason to be hopeful: more and more wolves are being prepared for release, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently released an updated recovery plan which outlines the need for at least two more release sites.

The Museum of Life and Science’s strong record of success breeding red wolves has had a positive impact on the struggling species. Perhaps someday, Durhamite red wolves will roam the wild once more.

Edited by Joe Macia