Several red wolf supporters have raised the issue of additional restoration sites in the Southeast on this Facebook page. Some of you have even mused about scoping out specific locations. It will take, above all else, public and political will. Thats where you and the Red Wolf Coalition come in. PLEASE READ THE TWO COMMENTS UNDER THE ARTICLE from T. DeLene Beeland and Ron Sutherland. They are crucially important: 1. FROM BEELAND (The Secret World of Red Wolves): First, its not an accurate characterization to call the red wolf program unpopular. Nationally, it is very popular. Negative sentiments for the program tend to be concentrated within the 5-county reintroduction area itself. Second, Id like to note that WMI did a very fair job with their review; I was skeptical of their potential but they proved me wrong. Their report is much more balanced than I was expecting. They were also able to detect and call out a landowner-led effort to destabilize and discredit the red wolf program; and they accurately sussed out responsibility for issues at the regional Southeast FWS level versus the FWS field team -- these last two are entirely different entities with different goals, despite being from the same institution. The SE Regional FWS lack of involvement over the years has been appalling, at best; counterproductive to negligent at worst. I hope that having the WMI report call them out on this will spur an institutional change in the SE FWS at levels higher than the red wolf field program personnel. 2. FROM SUTHERLAND (Wildlands Network): Actually the red wolf program has been remarkably successful, and it is worth keeping in mind this was the first effort to reintroduce a large carnivore back into the landscape in the US. It is therefore not surprising that a lot of lessons have been learned along the way. There does need to be more work correcting some of the false information that wolf-haters on the Albemarle Peninsula are spreading around. For one thing, as mentioned in the WMI report, the deer harvests in the red wolf recovery area have gone up since 1987, not down. There have been red wolves released on private land, but only with explicit permission from the landowner. Many of the farmers down there are more concerned about crop damage caused by too many deer, than they are about the wolves eating a few deer here and there. If you take the time to visit Pocosin Lakes and Alligator River National WIldlife Refuges (as I have on a number of occasions), youll find them chock full of wildlife of all kinds (particularly bears - head to Alligator River if you want to see bears!). The coyotes are a tough challenge, that much is true. But as the report notes, it is worth considering an experiment where pure red wolves are reintroduced into a new area for a few years in a row, and then the genetic mixture between wolves and coyotes can be monitored to see how the wolf genes do after that. If the larger wolves do better, as I predict they will (as they have an easier time catching deer) then their genes may do just fine in deer-rich southeastern landscapes. Also worth noting that the WMI review mentions there are 500 deer-vehicle collisions in the red wolf recovery area each year, and that is with the wolves. Millions of dollars in property damage, and dozens of injuries - and yet it is the wolves people are more afraid of!
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 11:25:18 +0000
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