The US Fish and Wildlife Service maintains a website at RED WOLF.
December, 1998 - Personal communication with Chris Lucash (At that time, he was the field biologist with the USF&WS stationed in the Smokies responsible for the red wolf project. For reasons discussed below, the red wolves were removed from the Park in 1998.)
He has been at the Smokies since the release of the first red wolves in 1991. 37 have been released in the last 5 -7 years with 15-17 dying from anti-freeze ingestion. Since the start of the program, 7 litters have resulted in 30 pups born in the wild, with only one that has survived (even this one, in a 1994 litter was actually born in captivity and released at seven weeks). The key seems to be a commonly found parva virus that is probably killing the young. The lone survivor had been vaccinated. Chris is interested in analyzing the blood of the healthy coyote population and looking at it’s antibody levels to see how it survives. Another major problem is that the wolves keep leaving the park for, what he conjectures as, better hunting grounds in the private grazing lands outside the park. The FWS currently retrieves strays in order not to alienate the general public. He is not sure that the Smokies is the right area to try a reintroduction, mainly due to the wolves leaving the park. The Alligator River NWR has been successful due to the fact that the surrounding land use is large scale agriculture, not grazing. The farmers actually see the wolves as beneficial in reducing deer and rodent populations (the wolves also reduce the muskrat and nutria populations, which endanger the stability of the dredged and filled in farm roads.) Another difference is that the lands around the Alligator River NWR are owned by major private companies. This means, in a real practical sense, one agreement with one landowner may involve 10,000 acres versus the small 10 to 100 acre farms surrounding the Smokies. In fact, the Alligator River program has been expanded to include the adjacent Mattamuskeet WR and Pocosin Lake WR. The bottom line is that the wolf reintroduction program in the Smokies may be relocated in the future.
He also discussed the issue of gene purity amongst the canine family. The genetic work has been principally done by Robert Wagner (Cal Tech). Chris acknowledges how similar the canines are (and that they do inter breed), but stated that it was Wagners work that has been used to show differences in DNA between species (Wagner noted differences, but discounted them in his conclusions.) Chris sees much work to be done in this field in the future.
He also noted the adaptive advantage of the Coyotes over wolves. For example, coyotes can be gregarious, like wolves, but commonly hunt alone. However, in Yellowstone, when the winter food is reduced to large elk, the coyotes will hunt together. Thus, their structure is more flexible. They also, due to their tooth structure, can handle plant material as a food source better than wolves. He also mentioned how a wolf, being on the top of the predator chain, will boldly approach a baited trap (and often get caught), whereas, the coyote, below the wolf, will cautiously approach the bait, looking for wolves, maybe pausing to nibble on the persimmon fruit, etc, before checking out the bait (thus, more often surviving the experience.)
APPALACHIAN TRAILWAY NEWS (9/10-94) - Fossil evidence shows that for nearly 750,000 years, the red wolf was the dominant canine predator from Pennsylvania to Texas. As a result of "predator controls", by 1973, when the Endangered Species Act was enacted, the red wolf had interbreed itself with coyotes and feral dogs to the point where there were practically no pure-bred red wolves remaining. The FWS trapped the remaining red foxes, and after checking for "genetic purity", determined that only 14 actually still existed. A release program in 1991 had a pair of red wolves and their pups released in the Smokies. A larger release in 1992 included two family groups, one in Cades Cove, the other in the Tremont area. In 1993, of the 16 released, seven died; four pups died of parvo virus, one by coyotes, one by antifreeze ingestion, and the last by other wolves. Two more pair are planned for release in the winter of 1995. The project’s goal is to have a pop of 50 to 75 wolves in the wild, which will require a range that will include much of the surrounding National Forest lands. As of 1994, about 300 red wolves exist; two thirds in zoos, nearly 100 in the wilds of North Carolina’s Alligator River NWR, and seven in the Smokies. While red wolves are social, they don’t hunt in packs. Their habitat discourages this, being so heavily wooded. Being solitary hunters, their prey is smaller, preferring young deer, raccoon, rabbits and rodents, than the large elk, bison and musk ox of the gray wolf’s diet. Coyotes weigh 20 to 45 pounds while red wolves weigh 50 to 70 pounds.