Endangered Wolf Center
The Endangered Wolf Center is a non-profit wildlife facility in Eureka, Missouri, United States, near St. Louis that is dedicated to preserving and reintroducing to the wild critically endangered species of wolves. It is certified by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). The Center was founded in 1971 by renowned naturalist Marlin Perkins and his wife Carol, who saw that wolves around the world were in danger of becoming extinct. Its mission is to preserve and protect Mexican wolves, red wolves, and other wild canid species, with purpose and passion, through carefully managed breeding, reintroduction and inspiring education programs. Animals born at the facility have been reintroduced to North Carolina (red wolves) and Arizona and New Mexico (Mexican wolves). The Center's research focuses on reproductive, behavioral and nutritional needs for the species housed there. The Endangered Wolf Center is a founding member of the AZA’s Mexican Wolf and Red Wolf Species Survival Plans. As of August 2016, the Center had six species of endangered canids: Mexican wolves, red wolves, maned wolves, African painted dogs, fennec foxes and swift foxes. It had more than 20 Mexican gray wolves, more than any other managed breeding facility. (Only 97 Mexican wolves were known to exist in the wild as of 2015.) The Center serves as the cornerstone of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's program to preserve Mexican wolves and reintroduce them to the wild.
List of gray wolf populations by country
In northeast Oregon, also in July 2008, wolf howls were heard by biologists who identified at least 2 adults and 2 pups. This was the first confirmed breeding pair in Oregon. By December 2011, Oregon's gray wolf population had grown to 24. One of the Oregon gray wolves, known as OR-7, traveled more than to the Klamath Basin and crossed the border into California. Wolf OR-7 became the first wolf west of the Cascades in Oregon since the last bounty was claimed in 1947. Oregon's wolf population increased to 77 wolves in 15 packs with 8 breeding pairs as of the end of 2015. As a result, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife proposed to delist wolves from their protected species list. On January 14, 2009, the United States Department of the Interior removed the Canadian gray wolf from the Endangered Species List in every American state except Wyoming. This move was blocked by lawsuits filed by conservation groups, but was successfully delisted on April 15, 2011 by the US Congress as part of a budget bill.
On August 31, 2012, Governor Matt Mead of Wyoming announced that wolves were no longer on the endangered species list in the state of Wyoming; therefore, they no longer need special protections from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The wolf population in Wyoming is then controlled by the state. But on September 23, 2014, wolves in Wyoming are again listed as nonessential experimental population under the Endangered Species Act.