![]() ![]() Biologists also study the relationship of living things to one another.īounty – A payment or other reward for removing or killing certain species of animals designated as harmful. In many states, selected species are legally designated as big game, small game (rabbits, squirrels, game birds) and non-game (songbirds, birds of prey).īiological Diversity or Biodiversity – The variety, complexity and relative abundance of species (plant and animal) present and interacting in an ecosystem.īiologist – A person who studies living organisms, life processes and/or the animal and plant life of a particular place. Examples are bears, moose, deer, elk, caribou and bighorn sheep. (See Alphas and Dominance Hierarchy)īig Game (Large Game) – Term used to designate larger species that are hunted. According to this model, a wolf at this rank would usually dominate all of the other wolves in its gender except the dominant wolf. This implied that a pack may have both a beta male and a beta female. In what researchers now consider an oversimplified model of a wolf pack, social hierarchies were thought to operate for males and females. Animals are frequently anthropomorphized in literature and in movies.īehavior – What an animal does its reactions or actions under specific conditions.īeta – The term sometimes used to describe the second rank in the social order of a wolf pack. Therefore, competition for rank in the group may take place with a resulting social hierarchy.Īnthropomorphism – The act of giving human characteristics, behaviors, feelings and/or motivations to animals or objects. Because a free-ranging wolf pack is a family comprising the parents and their offspring, the term “alphas” has been superseded by “breeding pair” or “breeders” or simply “parents.” (See Dominance Hierarchy) On the other hand, captive wolves that live together are often unrelated. WolfLink Virtual Learning for adults & groupsĪlphas – The term sometimes used to describe the dominant wolves in the social order of the wolf pack.The project intended to re-introduce a permanent population in 1987 led to four male/female pairs released into the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina. Through an evaluation process intended to exclude hybrids from the program, they ended up with only 14 individuals qualified to serve as the breeding population, and these animals only had the genetic diversity equivalent to eight animals. The breeding program that was developed to save the Red Wolf from extinction began in Tacoma, Washington, at the Point Defiance Zoological Gardens in 1971. The Red Wolves that have been re-introduced prey on white-tailed deer, nutria, rabbits and raccoons, though in the past their diet would have varied depending on their specific habitat. It’s believed that the young are tolerated by the breeding pair until they reach sexual maturity, at which point they are expelled from the group to form their own. Red Wolves live in extended family groups, which are led by a breeding pair and their young from older litters. Now, though, they range only in North Carolina, on 1.7 million acres of protected land. Fossil records indicate that their range might have extended as far north as Canada, before wolves began to be systematically wiped from North America during colonization. Their historical range included all of the southeastern United States, as far north as Pennsylvania, and as far west as central Texas. Red Wolves are called so because of the reddish buff colors in their coats. Males are about 10% heavier than females. Red Wolves measure up to 65 inches (165 cm) in body length, measure as tall as 31 inches (79 cm) at the shoulder, and weigh up to 90 pounds (41 Kg) – though the average weight is closer to 54 pounds (24.5 Kg). ![]() A captive breeding program in North Carolina began a species re-introduction in 1987, and now the Red Wolf is successfully breeding in the wild – though it’s not yet completely out of danger. By 1980, however, the Red Wolf was believed to be completely extinct in the wild. The Red Wolf saw a similar decline in population as the Gray Wolf, and by 1971 its numbers were so low that conservationists began concerted efforts to save it. Again, I really, really try not to play favorites. ![]()
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