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.
Canid hybrid
In recent history, the taxonomic status of the red wolf has been widely debated. Mech (1970) suggested that red wolves may be fertile hybrid offspring from gray wolf ("Canis lupus") and coyote ("C. latrans") interbreeding. Wayne and Jenks (1991) and Roy et al. (1994b, 1996) supported this suggestion with genetic analysis. Phillips and Henry (1992) present logic supporting the contention that the red wolf is a subspecies of gray wolf. However, recent genetic and morphological evidence suggests that the red wolf is a unique taxon. Wilson et al. (2000) report that gray wolves ("Canis lupus lycaon") in southern Ontario appear genetically very similar to the red wolf and that these two canids may be subspecies of one another and not a subspecies of gray wolf. Wilson et al. (2000) propose that red wolves and "C. lupus lycaon" should be a separate species, "C. lycaon", with their minor differences acknowledged via subspecies designation. North American wolf biologists and geneticists also concluded that "C. rufus" and "C. lupus lycaon" were genetically more similar to each other than either was to "C. lupus" or "C. latrans" (B.T. Kelly unpubl.). In 2002 orphometric analyses of skulls also indicate that the red wolf is likely not to be a gray wolf–coyote hybrid (Nowak 2002). Therefore, while the red wolf's taxonomic status remains unclear, there is mounting evidence to support "C. rufus" as a unique canid taxon.