Where are the wolves?
You're probably wondering; if this is the wolf prairie where are the wolves? Well this is The Westside High School Wolf prairie. It is named the wolf prairie because of our school mascot which is the timber wolf. At West side students work very hard to keep the prairie in good condition and make sure it flourishes and provides a good home to all the species that visit it year round. Red WolvesIn the past red wolves, also known as the Florida wolf or the Mississippi valley wolf, lived mainly in the southeastern part of the united states ranging from Pennsylvania to Texas. Millions of wild red wolves used to roam the United states but since their population decline that number has lowered to a shocking 100 Red wolves living in the wild. With the help of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife services the Red wolf population is beginning to increase slowly. The Red wolves' diet is mainly made up of small mammals such as rabbits but they can also eat things like berries, insects or even deer. Red wolves can live up to 7 years in the wild and can have a litter of up to 12 pups. In captivity the red wolf is capable of living up to 15 years.
What happened to the red wolves?Although the Red wolf ranged widely throughout the South Eastern United states in the past, the large amount of hunting and habitat loss caused the wolf to come dangerously close to extinction by the 1970's. The hunting of the red wolf became a normal practice to people in the 1960's. The red wolf began to be hunted for fundamental purposes. Our growing communities also affected the wolves by ridding them of their habitats and forcing them out to move somewhere else, eventually leading to the Red wolf being labeled as extinct in the 1980's due to the extremely low number of Red wolves living in the wild.
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Want to know more facts on Red wolves or how many wolves are currently in the wild? Find out now!
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The Red Wolf was actively hunted to extinction in TexasWhat is Wolf Corner?
"In the 1950's and 60's there was a bounty on the now ex-purged red wolf, and to collect, you had to cut there ears off. Carcasses or skins were hung on the barbwire fence on the northwest side of this intersection." This corner near our very own West Oaks Mall was home to Houstonian Charles Hans Grisbee, a wolf hunter. According to the 12/29/1998 Houston Chronicle Newspaper, "The quiet corner that adjoined Spencer Road in NW Harris County soon became a well known local landmark, a monument to both dairyman-turned-bounty-hunter and the wolves of the Katy Prairie who were his prey." In 1958, Grisbee, a 64 year old dairyman and sometimes sheep rancher - had been hunting for almost half a century. His sparse hunting grounds stretched between Katy & Hockley (30 miles NW of Downtown Houston). Grisbee began to hunt wolves because they posed a threat to local ranchers. Later, he started to hunt for the purpose of a hobby. He continued his hunt until the 1970's. The road to recoveryA little more information on how the endangered wolf center provides support for endangered species .
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Since the early 1970's there have been countless efforts to restore the Red wolf population. It was not until 1981 that the endangered wolf center received it's first pair of Red wolves. The endangered wolf center was the first facility to breed Red wolves and Mexican gray wolves in captivity, in fact about 5 percent of Red wolves born in captivity were from this facility.The U.S. Fish and Wildlife services also noticed the tremendous decline in the wolves and decided to help increase the population by gathering the few wolves that were left and placing them in captivity in order to breed. Since 2007, 207 red wolves stay in 38 captive breeding facilities in the United States. Now wild populations of red wolves roam most of Northeastern North Carolina and stay in refuges such as the Pocosin lakes national Wildlife Refuge. With the support of these facilities, the amount of Red wolves in the wild has been able to increase slowly.
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