Endangered red wolf can make it in the wild, but not without `significant’ help, study says

By ALLEN G. BREED
AP National Writer

WAKE FOREST, N.C. (AP) — A long-awaited viability study says the endangered red wolf can survive in the wild, but it’s going to take “substantial management efforts beyond many of those currently implemented.” The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also released an updated red wolf recovery plan Friday calling for $328 million in spending over the next 50 years to get the red wolf off the endangered species list. Once declared extinct in the wild, “Canis rufus ” became a poster child for the Endangered Species Act. But a wild population that had grown as high as 130 a decade ago now hovers around two dozen, all on federal land in eastern North Carolina.