This is Will Waddell. Will is an important person to me (and others too) because he is a big-guy in the world of red wolves. Will is based in Tacoma, Washington at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. He is the Red Wolf SSP Coordinator. Species Survival Plans (SSPs) are programs that take a particular species in peril (typically animals endangered or threatend in the wild) and manage the entire population as one group. Breeding and conservation tend to beRead more
Posts tagged: #SSP
Red Wolf Master Plan update
I’m in Chattanooga and I am getting ready for day two of the red wolf master plan meeting, which I wrote about a month or so ago. We covered a lot of important topics yesterday and had interesting discussions. We learned which types of contraception we should, and more importantly should not use, if we have to contracept red wolves. Most of the time, for red wolves, we are able to use separation of males and females during the shortRead 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
Red Wolf Master Plan Meeting Prep.
I am preparing for next month’s red wolf species survival plan (SSP) master plan meeting. This is an annual meeting where staff from institutions that house red wolves as well as other agencies that support red wolves get together to discuss the goals and issues facing the species. By “preparing” I mean not only dealing with the logistical issues of getting to the meeting but also gathering information to share about our current red wolves, general husbandry and veterinary questions,Read more