Two red wolves have joined the pack at the Chattanooga Nature Center, bringing the population to seven.
"Seeing endangered red wolves up close helps people realize how magnificent these animals are," said Dr. Jean Lomino, the center's executive director. "It makes the whole issue of saving species much more real and personal, especially when we understand that the red wolf lived and thrived right here in our valley not that many years ago."
The wolves, both males, were born around the first of April, 2009, at the Sandy Ridge Breeding Facility at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina. The date is approximate because the area is home to many red wolves and that is the date the pups were found, according to Nature Center wildlife curator Tish Gailmard.
A third pup in the litter was killed before it could be taken from the den, she said. And one of the new males is sporting a shorter tail, something that happened for an undetermined reason when he was a baby, Ms. Gailmard said.
The Red Wolf Recovery Program keeps track of all wolves born at facilities in the program. The Nature Center joined the program in 1996, and five pups were born there in 2007.
Two female pups now are living at the Land Between the Lakes nature station in Kentucky. One of the three males now lives in the wild in Florida, and the two remaining males and their mother continue to live at the Nature Center, along with a 4-year-old male and 6-year-old female whom Mrs. Gailmard hopes will breed.
"We're hoping to have puppies in the spring if they do," Mrs. Gailmard said.
The father of the pups, who since has been transferred to the Sandy Ridge preserve, also is the father of the two new males. And their mother is the sister of the mother still living at the Nature Center.
"So, bloodwise, they are all the same," Mrs. Gailmard said.
According to Red Wolf Recovery Program records, the new wolves' bloodline is overrepresented, so they will not be used for breeding anytime soon, she said.
"They will be on exhibit as animal ambassadors only for the time being," Mrs. Gailmard said.