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kevmcd86
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"Red wolves get 'stimulus'
$870,000 of federal spending package to help red wolves repopulate
By Lisa Zagaroli
lzagaroli@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Tuesday, Mar. 17, 2009
Slideshow

There's $870,000 in the federal budget President Obama signed last week for the red wolf revival program. PHOTO COURTESY OF GREG KOCH

When the few remaining red wolves try to breed, they prefer a little privacy. That's why Congress has stepped in to build a better love shack for the once nearly extinct species. KIM WHEELER – McCLATCHY-TRIBUNE PHOTO
WASHINGTON The endangered red wolf, which roams wild only in North Carolina, is getting federal help for its most important task – breeding.

There's $870,000 tucked in the $410 billion spending package signed by President Obama last week for the red wolf revival program.

Some of the earmark funds would expand the red wolf program in Asheville, which since 1985 has participated in the captive breeding effort with at least a pair and sometimes a pack of wolves.

The funding comes at a time of heightened criticism for all congressional earmarks, often viewed as pet “pork barrel” projects for lawmakers to tout back home.

“They should face a merit-based review … to determine if this is a national priority,” said Wesley Denton, a spokesman for Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.

Today, in Hyde County, where some were reluctant to welcome the wolves, some folks still think it's a waste of effort and money.

“They're interbreeding with coyotes,” said H. Anson Byrd, a county commissioner who is skeptical of efforts to keep a full-blooded red wolf population alive.

The sponsor of the earmark, Rep. Heath Shuler, a Democrat from Waynesville, and the program managers have discussed increasing veterinary and quarantine facilities, as well as capacity at Asheville, so it could begin to serve as a holding center for the wolves before they're distributed to other settings.

The money also will help build a new breeding center near Tacoma, Wash., where encroaching development near the current center has dampened the wolves' breeding habits.

It hasn't been determined yet how the money will be divided between the facility in Washington State and the Western North Carolina Nature Center, Shuler's office said.

It's all part of a decades-long effort to save the red wolf, a large animal with tinges of red on its shoulders, legs and ears. The species, wiped out by humans who viewed the animals as predators, had been reduced to only 17 known survivors in the 1970s.

The wolves have made a gradual comeback without major incident since scientists began releasing them into the wild in 1986.

Now, there's an estimated 100 to 130 living freely in Eastern North Carolina, in a five-county area that includes the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, said Buddy Fazio of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Manteo.

Another 210 wolves live in captivity, in zoos, nature centers and on preserves in such areas as Bull Island, S.C.

The flagship facility near Tacoma for decades was well-suited for the shy wolves to live and breed.

“It used to be nothing but forest and farmland,” Fazio said. “Suddenly, the facility is being swallowed up by high-density housing all around it.”

He said noise and other disturbances – such as attempted break-ins and theft of the red wolf pups – have unsettled the animals to the point they're not breeding as often.

The new facility would better mimic a natural den, away from human distractions, Fazio said.

Wolves also breed at Asheville's Nature Center, where officials said 18 pups have been born.

An off-site reserve at the N.C. Zoo in Asheboro also has spawned red wolf pups, some of which are immediately transferred to the wild for “fostering” by free wolves, Fazio said.

The goal is to repopulate their ranks in northeast North Carolina, the only known wild population, and keep the species pure from interbreeding in the meantime.

Scientists reintroduced the wolves to the Great Smoky Mountains in 1991, but pups didn't survive, largely because of disease.

“The extinction of an entire species has broad consequences and is something we must avoid,” said Shuler.

Fazio acknowledged some folks don't like wolves, in part because of misconceptions about the danger they pose to people, cattle or pets.

“They're big scaredy-cats; they want nothing to do with people,” Fazio said.

Still, the biologist admires the animal's resilience.

“No pun intended, they've been the underdog for so long and they keep persisting despite imminent threats of extinction,” he said. "

3/17/2009 8:37:32 AM

wolfpackgrrr
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neat

3/17/2009 8:39:38 AM

pttyndal
WINGS!!!!!
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now we need a stimulus package for our athletics program

3/17/2009 8:40:22 AM

miska
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3/17/2009 8:41:56 AM

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