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.
Wolf reintroduction
Over the decades since wolves have been present in the region, there have been hundreds of confirmed incidents of livestock depredation, though such predation represents a minute proportion of a wolf’s diet on a per wolf basis. While the majority of wolves ignore livestock entirely, a few wolves or wolf packs will become chronic livestock hunters, and most of these have been killed to protect livestock. Since the year Defenders of Wildlife implemented their compensation fund, they have allocated over $1,400,000 to private owners for proven and probable livestock depredation by wolves. Opponents argue that the Yellowstone reintroductions were unnecessary, as American wolves were never in danger of biological extinction since wolves still persisted in Canada. Opponents have also stated that wolves are of little commercial benefit, as cost estimates on wolf recovery are from $200,000 to $1 million per wolf. But the Lamar Valley is one of the best places in the world to observe wolves, and tourism based on wolves is booming. The growing wolf-viewing outfitting trend contrasts with declines for big game hunters. National Park Service Biologist Wayne Brewster informed guides and outfitters living north of Yellowstone National Park, to expect a fifty percent (50%) drop in harvestable game when wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park. This was confirmed when in 2006, the Yellowstone elk herd had in fact shrunk to 50% since the mid 1990s though researchers documented that most of the elk that fell prey to wolves were very old, diseased, or very young. Two 30-day periods of tracking radio collared wolves showed that 77–97% of prey species documented by wolves in the park were elk. Outside the park, numerous hunting outfitters have closed due to the concomitant 90% reduction in elk permits. Defenders of Wildlife transitioned from paying compensation to helping ranchers utilize nonlethal methods to better protect livestock from wolf predation. These methods include carcass removal to reduce attractants to scavengers, increased human presence near livestock, lighting, herd management, livestock guard dogs, and other measures (see http://www.defenders.org/sites/default/files/publications/livestock_and_wolves.pdf for more information).