The Secret World of Red Wolves: The Fight to Save North America's Other Wolf - Hardcover

Beeland, T. Delene

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1469601990 ISBN 13: 9781469601991

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr, 2013

Synopsis

Red wolves are shy, elusive, and misunderstood predators. Until the 1800s, they were common in the longleaf pine savannas and deciduous forests of the southeastern United States. However, habitat degradation, persecution, and interbreeding with the coyote nearly annihilated them. Today, reintroduced red wolves are found only in peninsular northeastern North Carolina within less than 1 percent of their former range. In The Secret World of Red Wolves, nature writer T. DeLene Beeland shadows the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's pioneering recovery program over the course of a year to craft an intimate portrait of the red wolf, its history, and its restoration. Her engaging exploration of this top-level predator traces the intense effort of conservation personnel to save a species that has slipped to the verge of extinction.
Beeland weaves together the voices of scientists, conservationists, and local landowners while posing larger questions about human coexistence with red wolves, our understanding of what defines this animal as a distinct species, and how climate change may swamp its current habitat.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Red wolves are shy, elusive, and misunderstood predators. Until the 1800s, they were common in the longleaf pine savannas and deciduous forests of the southeastern United States. However, habitat degradation, persecution, and interbreeding with the coyote nearly annihilated them. Today, reintroduced red wolves are found only in peninsular northeastern North Carolina within less than 1 percent of their former range. In The Secret World of Red Wolves, nature writer T. DeLene Beeland shadows the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's pioneering recovery program over the course of a year to craft an intimate portrait of the red wolf, its history, and its restoration.

Reviews

Most people are unaware of the fact that there are two wolf species in North America; or, if they have heard of the red wolf, mistakenly think of it as the mongrel hybrid of a gray wolf and a coyote. In this, the first complete telling of the comeback of the red wolf, nature writer Beeland examines all aspects of this misunderstood canine. In engaging language, Beeland gives the history of the habitat degradation and human persecution that drove this leggy southeastern wolf to the brink, and of how hybridizing with coyotes newly arrived from the West almost became the final straw. She relates the capture of the last pure red wolves, the learning curve with captive breeding, the abortive attempt to reintroduce the wolves to the wilds of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the final home of the wild population in North Carolina. The combination of first-person immediacy interwoven with red wolf history will delight animal lovers. --Nancy Bent

Edition details

• Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1469601990
• ISBN 13: 9781469601991
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256