and does not freak out. Why would anyone expect me to freak out? Seriously, just because they have baby red wolf cubs at the Salisbury zoo, and just because the cubs are now old enough, at a little over a month, to walk around their enclosure on their own, and just because Delmarva Now posted pictures of them….

OH MY GOODNESS WHO IS A FLUFFY LEETLE WOLF PUPPY? YOU ARE! OH YES YOU ARE! I WANT TO NIBBLE THEIR LITTLE EARSES!

The five pups are super adorable, but they are also part of a serious effort to rehabilitate a species that is now very endangered in the US. Efforts to reintroduce the red wolf, Canis rufus, to the American Southeast are centered in North Carolina, but zoos around the country are working on breeding the wolves in captivity. The Salisbury pups are, of course, great news for those who want to see the wolf population restored. Unfortunately, conservationists have their work cut out for them thanks to excessive hunting and predator control by those who see wolves as a threat to livestock — which, of course, they wouldn’t be if it weren’t for rampant habitat destruction. Conservationists believe that we can create a nation where native wild species live alongside agriculture and development with less conflict. Programs like Salisbury’s are helping to prepare us to live in that future.

An adult red wolf, image courtesy of wikipedia.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 11:28 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.