PROTECTION STATUS: Listed in 1967 under the Endangered Species Preservation Act, the precursor to the Endangered Species Act; then listed as endangered when that Act was passed in 1973 (reintroduced population listed as an “nonessential experimental population” in 1986)
RANGE: Dare, Hyde, Tyrrell, Washington and Beaufort counties in northeastern North Carolina
THREATS: Habitat loss, illegal killings and other human persecution, hybridization with coyotes
POPULATION TREND: Red wolves were declared extinct in the wild in 1980. In 1987 four captive pairs of red wolves were released in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in Dare County in northeastern North Carolina. The wild population steadily grew until 2006, when it reached its peak at 130 wolves, but then it began declining again — very rapidly — in 2014. The next year the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated the population to be between just 50 and 75 individuals. In 2022, the population was down to just 8 known wild wolves.
