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.
Tongue River (Montana)
The grey wolf is an issue if not yet a reality in the Tongue River Basin, and there have been unconfirmed sightings of wolves in the more remote areas of the basin. Livestock, particularly sheep and calves, are vulnerable to wolves and, according to reports, livestock suffered significant depredations by wolves and coyotes in the last part of the 19th and the first part of the 20th century. This led to a war on these predators, with bounties paid by livestock associations and state agencies. By the mid-1930s wolves had been exterminated completely in the Tongue River basin (and indeed throughout the stockgrowing west). Times changed, and sympathy grew for the wolf, as well as his cousin the coyote. Since the release of wolves in Yellowstone Park in 1995, there has been increasing concern by stockgrowers in surrounding areas that wolf packs would migrate out of the park to cattle country and re-establish themselves where the pickings were better. In cattle and sheep country like the Tongue River basin, the debate about wolf reintroduction is ongoing and far from resolved.