The Secret World of Red Wolves: The Fight to Save North America's Other Wolf

by T. DeLene Beeland

Overview

Red wolves are shy, elusive, and misunderstood predators. Until the 1800s, they were common in the longleaf pine savannas and deciduous forests of the southeastern United States. However, habitat degradation, persecution, and interbreeding with the coyote nearly annihilated them. Today, reintroduced red wolves are found only in peninsular northeastern North Carolina within less than 1 percent of their former range. In The Secret World of Red Wolves, nature writer T. DeLene Beeland shadows the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's pioneering recovery program over the course of a year to craft an intimate portrait of the red wolf, its history, and its restoration. Her engaging exploration of this top-level predator traces the intense effort of conservation personnel to save a species that has slipped to the verge of extinction.
Beeland weaves together the voices of scientists, conservationists, and local landowners while posing larger questions about human coexistence with red wolves, our understanding of what defines this animal as a distinct species, and how climate change may swamp its current habitat.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469626543
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	09/01/2015
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	718,503
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

T. DeLene Beeland is a nature and science writer living in Asheville, N.C. Her work has appeared in the Charlotte Observer and Wildlife in North Carolina, among other publications.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Part I The Red Wolf Today

1 Red Wolves of the Albemarle Peninsula 3

2 A Morning at Sandy Ridge 16

3 The Search for Spring's Pups 29

4 Howling Summer Nights 43

5 Tracking and Trapping in the Fall 51

6 Winter's Bite 65

7 People of the Albemarle Peninsula 81

Part II The Red Wolf Yesterday

8 Tracing the Origins of Red Wolves 105

9 "Dogs of the Woods" and Their Decline 124

10 A Biologist's Zeal for Recovery 142

11 Wild Island Adventures 157

12 North Carolina's Reborn Native Wolf 165

Part III The Red Wolf Tomorrow

13 The Long Road Ahead 199

14 A Dire Threat from the Sea 213

Acknowledgments 229

Bibliography 231

Index 243

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Fascinating and beautifully written. Beeland covers the red wolf in an engaging and clear manner, and the action is page-turning. An important resource for scholars of wildlife and the environmental movement." —Laura Helmuth, science and health editor, Slate magazine

Editorial Reviews

Fascinating, a must-read for both scientific and popular audiences." —Wolf Print



The first complete telling of the comeback of the red wolf. . . . The combination of first-person immediacy interwoven with red wolf history will delight animal lovers." —Booklist



In her narrative of slow but crucial progress, Beeland does an excellent job of covering the worries, hopes, setbacks, and triumphs of the determined [Red Wolf] researchers and their ultimate story of success. Recommended." —Library Journal



By the time the last page turns, the reader will have been taught and entertained in equal measure, and it will be a rare person who doesn't feel more empathy for all those involved with the perilous life of this rare creature. . . . [Beeland's] fine writing shines through this book, lending clarity to complex questions such as how the wolf evolved . . . and charm to stories of the region and the people who have worked so hard to drag the wolf from the jaws of extinction." —The Charlotte Observer



We come to know the red wolf through the eyes of an objective writer, one who has the ability to deliver the details in both a factual and enthralling way. . . and we finish her book feeling something of an expert ourselves." —Ecolit Books blog



Reveals the current status of the [Red Wolf] while clarifying much of its history." —Coastwatch



Beeland tells the convoluted tale of the North American red wolf in clear and refreshingly readable prose. The book is a necessary read for anyone interested in wolf conservation, or in the captive breeding and reestablishment of endangered species." —AllAboutWildlife.com



The Secret World of Red Wolves is a very important addition to any wolf aficionado's library and is easily the definitive and most complete book written on the subject. . . . Readers will find this treatise to be an easy-to-read page turner that is timely and a welcomed book on 'North America's other wolf.'" —The Canadian Field-Naturalist



A very welcome addition. . . . Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates and general readers." —Choice

From the Publisher

Proclaiming a love of all things local is currently a fast and easy way to brand yourself as hip and cool. But one of the truly "local" wonders of the United States, the red wolf (Canis rufus) is almost completely unknown by even the most hip animal lovers and environmentalists. Less documented in the press than the gray wolf and essentially hidden from sight, the red wolf is a species native to the Southeastern U.S. coast; it almost ended up on the extinction list thanks to early settlers who hunted it relentlessly. By the 1980s it was declared functionally extinct. Now nature and science writer Beeland expertly and succinctly covers the story of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's efforts to find and rescue the few remaining wolves in Texas and Louisiana. After locating (and trapping) only 17 of them, the service created the first-ever U.S. captive breeding program in an attempt to bring back the red wolf; there are now almost 200 of them. VERDICT In her narrative of slow but crucial progress, Beeland does an excellent job of covering the worries, hopes, setbacks, and triumphs of the determined researchers and their ultimate story of success. Recommended.—Susan E. Brazer, Salisbury Univ. Lib., MA

Library Journal