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Red Wolf
The red wolf's coat ranges from cinnamon red, gray to black. It is smaller than the gray wolf, larger than a coyote, and weighs 40 to 80 pounds
Red wolves roam in smaller packs than gray wolves. Most times the red wolf pack consists of an adult pair and their young offspring.
Like mexican, maned, and gray wolves, red wolves mate for life. Adults mate between February and March of every year. Two to three pups are born during April or May. Both males and females help raise their young. When the young are about 6 months old they are mature enough to leave home.
The last remaining red wolves live in coastal prairie and marsh areas. Red wolves need between 10 and 100 square miles of habitat to hunt and live. However Red wolves have been reintroduced at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Red wolves prefer to eat white-tailed deer and raccoon, but will eat any available small animal.
Three problems threaten the future of red wolves - the loss of habitat, the hunting of wolves, and red wolves mating with coyotes. The expansion of agriculture, logging and human settlement cleared the forest home of red wolves. Between 1900 - 1920 red wolves were hunted because they preyed on cattle. As the population of red wolves declined, coyotes expanded into its territory.
Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge
Red Wolf Re-establishment Program
Gray Wolf
Gray wolves live in packs with 8 to 35 members. The leader of the pack is the alpha.
Gray wolves, like maned and red wolves, mate for life. Usually only the alpha pair breeds. Pairs mate in the winter and about 9 weeks later 2 to 14 pups are born. Pups are born blind. Other females in the pack help take care of newborn pups. Within 3 to 5 months the young pups are able to travel with the pack.
Presently the Gray Wolf inhabits Michigan's Upper Peninsula, northern Minnesota and Wisconsin and a large geographic range in Alaska, Canada, Europe, Middle East and Asia. The gray wolf once lived in diverse regions as Israel and Egypt.
There are approximately 2,500 gray wolves in the lower 48 states and about 10,000 in Alaska
People have changed their ideas and public policies about wolves many times. Earlier this century people worldwide believed wolves should be hunted and killed because wolves were killing cattle and deer. Wolf populations were the lowest in Eurasia between the 1930's and 1960's. In the 1950's wolf numbers were the lowest in North America.
Today much research is being conducted to determine the best habitat for wolves. Recently, 30 gray wolves were re-introduced to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. A thriving wolf population lives in northern Minnesota and there is an isolated population on Isle Royale National Park, Michigan. Worldwide, gray wolves are coming back due to research and public education efforts. Gray wolves now live in Rome (Italy), Spain, France, Poland, Germany, the former Soviet Union, Finland, Norway, and Sweden.
Gray wolves communicate to each other through howling, body language and scent. Howling is used to assemble the pack, talk to other packs, assert territorial claims or as a source of pleasure. On a calm night, howls can be heard from as far as 120 miles away. Wolves use their faces and tails to indicate their emotion and status in the pack. A pack marks its territory by urine and feces.
The Wild Ones
Not long ago I read an article that was very disturbing to me.
This article was about making it legal to hunt the Gray Wolf which still roams in large numbers on the Alaska Frontier.
The complaint was that the wolves were hunting all the game and leaving nothing for the hunters to go out and shoot. Needless to say I was appalled at this total lack of regard for life.
After all hunters can go to the super market to get food if they need to eat, wolves on the other hand don't have that option. The wolves are surviving in the way nature intended for it to do.
Hunters go out and hunt as a form of recreation, not as a form of survival like the wolves.
To try and deny an animal the right to live just so man can go out to shoot at another animal for sport is going beyond the sanity line.
Death Of A Innocent
As I eat with my fellow sisters and brothers of the pack, we are suddenly aware of a new presence among us.
Looking up we see humans with guns coming our way, we scatter to advoid these beast. Howling in pain as a hot pain sears through my body, I lay down in the snow to look at the man who claimed my life.
In my death I try and understand the meaning of my slaughter, why I had to die. The Great Spirit comes to me with tears in his eyes
He tells me it was so the humans could have more animals to hunt, in my innocence I ask but does he not have enough to eat? I am assured that he does.
So great spirit I ask again why did I have to die? With the tears of love flowing from his eyes he says, "So the humans can have more animals to hunt for fun."
Still not understanding I cry to the winds, The great spirit tells me that one day my death will be for something, he says "Life is a circle, by killing off the links they kill off their selve in the end."
With each animal that goes extinct we as a human race come that much closer to becoming extinct our selves. It's that kind of thinking stated above that is killing this planet we all call home.
All of nature is connected in a circle, to kill off part of that circle in the long run kills our selves.
