SSP, AZA, USFWS, ARNWR, RWC, PDZA, RWSSP, RWRP. These are all acronyms used when talking about the Red Wolf Recovery Program (RWRP). Originally, I was just going to explain what a Species Survival Plan (SSP) is, so that the readers can have a better idea of how the red wolf breeding program works. But it’s not that simple, because there are several facets of the program. Here is an overview for you. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) tookRead more
Posts tagged: #conservation
Wolf Awareness Week
We’re excited about the upcoming Wolf Awareness Week. The focus of this week is on wolves and their value and importance. You’ll get a chance everyday to meet a keeper and talk about our wolves and wolf conservation. We’re especially excited to have Kim Wheeler, the executive director of the Red Wolf Coalition here, Wednesday afternoon. She’ll be set up down at the wolf exhibit all afternoon with some neat items and great conversation. Kim was just honored with theRead more
I Like to Ride My Bicycle
Sorry if that title made you get a certain Queen song stuck in your head (fair’s fair, it’s stuck in mine now). Back in December, Sherry wrote a post about water conservation and the things we were doing to cut back on our water usage during our extreme drought. I just re-read that post, and I’m happy to say that we still are doing all of those things, and even more now to decrease our water usage. For instance, weRead more
Madagascar animals
Cassandra (a Ringtail Lemur) explores her exhibit I think our six lemurs here at the Museum are pretty good ambassadors of their species. But if watching and learning about them hasn’t been enough to make you want to support habitat conservation in Madagascar, click here for another couple hundred of reasons.Read more
Big Word of the Month: Biodiversity
This month’s big word is not that obscure or difficult to pronounce but the concept behind it can be a bit large to grasp. Biodiversity is a word and idea that tries to capture the complex relationships among different forms of life. It came into widespread use beginning in the 1980’s in scientific and political circles as an organizing theme in discussions of conservation. The rise of the word coincided with a change of focus for environmental groups from theRead more
Species Survival
Many of the posts on our blog have dealt in one way or another with red wolves. Keeper Marilyn has written a detailed series on the plight of the species and the efforts to reestablish it to the wild in North Carolina. Over the last 20 years the eastern North Carolina population has increased dramatically and has become a textbook example of reintroducing an extirpated species. Unfortunately, the only wild population of red wolves has been threatened by one ofRead more