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.
History of wolves in Yellowstone
The campaign to restore the gray wolf in Yellowstone had its roots in a number of seminal studies related to the predator-prey ecology of the park. In 1940 Adolph Murie published "Ecology of the Coyote in the Yellowstone National Park". That study and his 1940–41 work "The Wolves of Mount McKinley" was instrumental in building a scientific foundation for wolf conservation. In 1944, noted wildlife biologist Aldo Leopold, once an avid predator control advocate, made the following comments in his review of "The Wolves of North America", Young and Goldman, 1944:
By the 1960s, cultural and scientific understanding of ecosystems was changing attitudes toward the wolf and other large predators. In part, this included the emergence of Robert Paine's concept of the keystone species. In the early 1960s, Douglas Pimlott, a noted Canadian wildlife biologist was calling for the restorations of wolves in the northern rockies. In 1970 American wolf expert, David Mech published "The Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species" (1970, 1981), an enlightening study of the wolf and its impact on its environment. In 1978, when wildlife biologist John Weaver published his seminal study "Wolves of Yellowstone", he concluded the report with the following recommendation:
The gray wolf was one of the first species to be listed as endangered (1967) under the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966. However, until the passage of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, there was no legal basis or process for re-introducing the gray wolf to Yellowstone National Park and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The Endangered Species Act obligated the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop restoration plans for each species designated as "Endangered". The first recovery plan was completed in 1980 but gained little traction. In 1987, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a revised "Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery Plan" which led the way to wolf reintroduction. The plan was a cooperative effort between the National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, academia, state wildlife agencies and environmental groups. Its Executive Summary contains the following:
In 1991 Congress directed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the express purpose of reintroducing wolves into Yellowstone National Park and regions of Central Idaho. The final statement was published on April 14, 1994 and seriously examined five potential alternatives for reestablishing wolves in Yellowstone and central Idaho.