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Red Wolf Facts and Video - Canis rufus - Defenders of Wildlife

Red Wolf, Koch, USFWS
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The red wolf is a smaller and a more slender cousin of the gray wolf. It is gray-black, with a reddish cast that gives it the color for which it is named.

Red Wolf and Human - ScaleFast Facts

Height: About 26 inches at shoulders.
Length: 4.5-5.5 feet long (including the tail).
Weight: 50-80 lbs.
Lifespan: 6-7 years in the wild; up to 15 years in captivity.

Adopt a Red Wolf and Help Save Red Wolves

Diet

The red wolf’s diet consists primarily of small mammals such as rabbits and rodents. Also known to eat insects, berries and occasionally deer.

Population

Did You Know?

To enhance the genetic diversity of red wolves in the wild, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Red Wolf Recovery Program places captive-born red wolf pups with wild mothers and their pups in a method called "fostering."

Almost hunted to the brink of extinction, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rounded up fewer than 20 pure red wolves to be bred in captivity in 1980. As of 2007, approximately 207 captive red wolves reside at 38 captive breeding facilities across the United States. Thanks to these programs, more than 100 red wolves currently live in the wild.

Range

Historically, red wolves ranged throughout the southeastern U.S. from Pennsylvania to Florida and as far west as Texas. Today, wild populations roam more than 1.7 million acres throughout northeastern North Carolina, including Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge and Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. See a red wolf range map >>

Behavior

Did You Know?

The red wolf's large ears help it cool down, which is essential in t he often hot and humid climate of the southeastern United States.

Red wolves are primarily nocturnal (active at night), and communicate by scent marking, vocalizations (including howling), facial expressions and body postures.

Shy and secretive, red wolves hunt alone or in small packs -- complex social structures that include the breeding adult pair (the alpha male and female) and their offspring. Red wolves tend to form pair-bonds for life.

Size of the pack varies with the size of available prey populations. A hierarchy of dominant and subordinate animals within the pack helps it to function as a unit. Dens are often located in hollow trees, stream banks and sand knolls.

Reproduction
Mating season: Late winter.
Gestation: 60-63 days.
Litter size: 2-8 pups.

Threats

Threats to the red wolf include habitat loss due to human development, negative attitudes that hinder restoration, severe weather, deaths by motor vehicles, and illegal killings. Interbreeding between coyote and red wolf populations has remained a constant threat to the recovery of this imperiled species. Learn more >>

Reasons For Hope

Defenders at Work

Defenders has been working on red wolf recovery since the mid-1980s through a combination of advocacy and public education. The species, once considered extinct in the wild, now numbers more than 100 in northeastern North Carolina. Learn more >>

In early 2008, the Navy finally abandoned a proposal to build a training airstrip adjacent to Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina -- critical wintering ground for hundreds of thousands of migratory swans, geese and ducks, and home to the world’s only wild population of endangered red wolves.

A broad coalition worked for years to prevent the airstrip, with Defenders staff providing important support and thousands of our supporters writing messages urging the Navy to reconsider this ill-conceived plan. Learn more >>

Legal Status/Protection

How You Can Help

For additional information

Learn more about our wolf conservation efforts throughout North America