Red wolf
| Red wolf | |
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 Critically Endangered (IUCN 3.1) Database entry includes justification for why this species is critically endangered. |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Suborder: | Caniformia |
| Family: | Canidae |
| Genus: | Canis |
| Species: | C. rufus |
| Binomial name | |
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Canis rufus (Audubon & Bachman, 1851) |
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| Subspecies | |
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| Modern range of North American Canis | |
| Synonyms | |
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The red wolf (Canis rufus/Canis lupus rufus), also known as the Florida wolf or Mississippi Valley wolf, is a canid of unresolved taxonomic identity native to the eastern United States. It is generally, morphologically, an intermediate between the coyote and gray wolf, and is of a reddish, tawny color. The red wolf is a federally listed endangered species of the United States, and is protected by law. It has been listed by IUCN as a critically endangered species since 1996.
Red wolves may have been the first New World wolf species encountered by European colonists, and were originally distributed throughout the eastern United States from the Atlantic Ocean to central Texas, and in the north from the Ohio River Valley, northern Pennsylvania and southern New York south to the Gulf of Mexico. The red wolf was nearly driven to extinction by the mid-1900s due to aggressive predator-control programs, habitat destruction, and extensive hybridization with coyotes. By the late 1960s, it occurred in small numbers in the Gulf Coast of western Louisiana and eastern Texas. Fourteen of these survivors were selected to be the founders of a captive-bred population, which was established in the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium between 1974 and 1980. After a successful experimental relocation to Bulls Island off the coast of South Carolina in 1978, the red wolf was declared extinct in the wild in 1980 to proceed with restoration efforts. In 1987, the captive animals were released into the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge on the Albemarle Peninsula in North Carolina, with a second release taking place two years later in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Of 63 red wolves released from 1987–1994, the population rose to as many as 100–120 individuals in 2012, but has declined to 50–75 individuals in 2015.
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