I told you a couple weeks ago I was heading out to the Red Wolf SSP meeting. I’ll cut right to the chase this year. (Last year you got to first learn about everything EXCEPT wolves).
We’ll be keeping our two red wolves and hoping they make some babies.
My main job on day two, during the “matchmaking” and “moving” stage, is to document what is going on on big paper for all to see. I write down what breeding pairs have been made and keep track of how many we make. I also keep track of wolves moving (how many “transfers” we make) and if cars/airplanes are needed to make the moves. The chart below gives you an idea of my messy writing and my poor art skills, but you get the idea (I hope). Someone else keeps track of the same thing I do and we compare notes to make sure that we got everything right.
Day two is a fun, overwhelming, exciting, tiring, and stressful day as there is so much to consider and take in. Please ask questions- I am happy to try to answer them.
What is TREK and why do they have so many wolves?
A fine question Leslie, I’ll try to be brief. Trek is “Northwest Trek”, a zoo/animal park that is park of Metro Parks of Tacoma, WA. Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium, kind of the headquarters for the captive component of the red wolf recovery program, is also part of Metro Parks Tacoma. There was a captive red wolf holding facility called “Graham” out in WA. The land became encroached upon with housing developments. A bunch of federal stimulus money came in two years ago and funded the moving of the Graham facility to behind the scenes at Northwest Trek.
I’m excited to hear both are wolves are staying put and getting another chance to breed.
oops- ‘our’ wolves