Is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service giving up on trying to recover red wolves in North Carolina?/USFWS image from Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva has written Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to ask if he plans to give up on efforts to recover red wolf populations in North Carolina, where a pilot program to return the endangered predators to Great Smoky Mountains National Park failed in the 1990s.

Rep. Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona and ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, told the Interior secretary that he hopes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is not giving up on the effort to return the animals to their historic landscape.

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has indicated that it is considering the termination of management for the North Carolina red wolf population, essentially abandoning the species and any recovery efforts in the wild," the congressman wrote Monday. "Instead of giving up on the recovery of red wolves, the FWS should take proactive measures to prevent permanent extinction of the species, fully implement the Red Wolf Adaptive Management plan, reintroduce captive wolves into the wild, and reinstate an effective landowner outreach program."

Two pairs of red wolves were set loose in Great Smoky in January 1991, but seven years later, after nearly 40 wolves had been released there and gave birth to 33 pups, the program in the park was abandoned. According to Rep. Grijalva, the FWS now estimates that there are about 40 of the animals living in a five-county area of eastern North Carolina.

"This drastic decline is in part due to the lack of management by the FWS," the Democrat claimed. "Fueled by local political pressures, the agency stopped releasing captive wolves into the wild in 2015, and in the same year, suspended its efforts to prevent wolf-coyote hybridization. In 2016, the FWS issued a proposed rule, which has not yet been finalized, to slash the territory of the red wolf by approximately 88 percent, confining the population to only federal lands in one county and effectively extinguishing what remains of the wolf's historic range."

In wrapping up his letter to Secretary Zinke, the congressman asked if the FWS plans to develop a new recovery plan for the species, educate landowners to build support for the wolf's recovery, and work to reduce hybridization between wolves and coyotes.