Making Lemonade out of Lemons… red wolf pup style

Nope, no pups here, but it’s the time of year when red wolves have pups. For the most part, every red wolf is born in April or May (I believe there have been three litters in the past 30+ years born the very last week in March). Several of our partner institutions in the Red Wolf Species Survival Plan have had pups. North Carolina Zoo, Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium, and Rowan Wildlife Adventures, just to name a few. EvenRead more

Wolf Transfer Day: Removing Wolves From Crates

Getting a wolf from out of our wolf yard and into a crate is complicated, as we’ve reviewed. Releasing a wolf from a crate back into the habitat is reasonably easy. For the most part, you open the door and the wolf runs out. (Sometimes, however, some wolves just stay in the crate). But what about getting a wolf out of a crate for its physical? There are numerous ways to do this, and the below routine is what hasRead more

Wolf Transfer Day: let’s talk about crates

Last week I talked about catching up the wolves. The focus of post #2 about red wolf transfer day will be on CRATES. In order to catch up 10 wolves, we not only need more than 10 crates (ideally), but very specific sizes and types in order to make our work go as easily as possible. The work starts well ahead of time to make sure we have the crates on grounds: a minimum of 10 of the “x-large” size,Read more

The goodbye was hard… on so many levels

Last week we transferred eight of our red wolves to the Mill Mountain Zoo, one of our Red Wolf SSP partner institutions. We’ve been updating folks through Facebook so hopefully everyone is aware of the changes. I’ll write a few different posts over the coming days to let people in on the enormity of the project. From planning, communications, wolf catch-up, health checks, transportation, emotions, documentation, institutional readiness, supply management, and more; the project was intense. Today, let’s focus onRead more

A long time coming for this pup check

While temperatures are still high, the summer seems to have just flown by. This is the first Blog post in well over one month, and I have pictures to share of pups that are well over 30 pounds! We had our whole team plus an additional four staff helping us catch up our 20-week olds! It’s no simple task anymore getting our six “pups” caught. With 10 wolves in the yard there is a lot going on. Long story short,Read more

99 days old and doing well.

A successful red wolf pup check occurred earlier this week. Lots and lots of prep work and planning seemed to really pay off. If you recall, our last pup catch-up yielded only 5 of 6 pups caught up. This time, we brought in the entire Animal Care Team and four other staff who have worked with us on previous pup catches. Seems like 13 people and over 100 feet of tarps were the way to go. Three pups started theRead more