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| Red wolf Temporal range: 10,000 Years-Present | |
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| Canis lupus rufus | |
The red wolf (Canis rufus) is a subspecies of wolf. It is an endangered species of wolf from Eastern North America.
Red wolves were declared extinct in the wild in 1980 after the few remaining wild wolves were placed in a captive breeding program. Reintroduced to the wild in 1987 in northeastern North Carolina, red wolves began to recover, but the population is rapidly diminishing as of late 2016.
The red wolf is smaller than a gray wolf and larger than a coyote. It is slender and long-legged, and it lives in the wild only on the Albemarle Peninsula in North Carolina. It hunts small mammals, rodents, and white-tailed deer.
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