WCC Expands Red Wolf SSP Population & Plans to Open Exhibit in the Fall!

WCC Curator Rebecca Bose recently returned from the annual Red Wolf Species Survival Plan (SSP) meeting, which this year was held in Tacoma, WA - right on the Puget Sound.  "The meeting was small, but very productive, with exciting news for the WCC and our visitors," reports Bose, who also is part of the Management Committee for the Red Wolf SSP Program.  "This Fall, not only will M1587 be coming from the Mill Mountain Zoo in Virginia to join F1291, our lone female red wolf, but the WCC will also be getting a second breeding pair:  M1483 from the Point Defiance Zoo in Washington, and F1397 from Ashburgh, North Carolina!  That will make the WCC the ONLY SSP facility with more than one breeding pair for the 2010 season."

Last Spring's breeding results for the Red Wolf program were disappointing -- with only 11 pups surviving.  So this year, the program has actually put together 27 potential breeding pairs.  "We have wanted to boost our red wolf population for a while," says Bose, "because it is the indigenous Eastern species and the WCC is an East-coast based facility, and because we believe so strongly in the program and its method of reintroducing captive-bred animals into the wild.  All four of the red wolves that will be at the WCC this Fall are young, untried, and very important genetically - so if we can breed them successfully it will be a great coup for the WCC and for the Red Wolf SSP Program!"

Equally exciting is the fact that visitors to the WCC will actually be able to observe one of the new red wolf resident pairs - and the pups if they breed successfully - because only red wolf pups are introduced into the wild, never adults.  "Our SSP Mexican gray wolves must be kept out of contact with people so that they can remain wary and therefore be good candidates for release," explains Bose.  "With red wolves, that is not a concern, so this will be the first opportunity the WCC has to offer visitors a chance to see not only our Ambassadors, but also some of the 20+ SSP animals they hear howling in the background."