Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 12, 1994 TAG: 9405120180
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Mill Mountain Zoo announced Wednesday that its female red wolf, obtained a year ago as part of a national breeding program for endangered species, gave birth late Sunday to five pups.
Mom and the offspring are doing fine, zoo Director Beth Poff said, but Dad is a bit high-strung.
The adult red wolves were the first animals in a program set up by the zoo and Virginia's Explore Park to breed rare North American animals. The animals are kept on a secluded, eastern Roanoke County farm Explore owns. (The zoo breeds other endangered species at its location atop Mill Mountain).
Last year, the wolves' mating season passed without a blessed event, so zookeepers were a bit wary as they watched the couples' progress this spring.
"The first of April, she was still skinny as a rail," Poff said of No.457, the official name for the 3-year-old female. But around the first of May, zookeepers noticed the wolf putting on weight and digging, as if trying to make a nest.
"We thought we were just optimistic," Poff said. "Then she definitely started getting heavy, and before we knew it, pop, there they were."
The five pups - three males, two females - likely will stay at Explore for the next year or so until they're mature, Poff said. But then the national matchmaking committee that oversees the species' comeback will assign them mates and probably ship them out to other locations to do their genetic duty.
An important one it is, too. The red wolf once ranged from Maryland to Texas, but by the 1970s, the species had dwindled to only 17 purebred animals, which were whisked away to a zoo in Washington state to save them from extinction.
Since then, scientists have meticulously bred the species back to recovery. Now, there are about 200 red wolves in captivity, and another 30 or so that have been released into the wild in the North Carolina swamps and the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.
But scientists say the species won't be completely safe again until there are 300 animals in captivity and some 200 roaming free.
Even before the red wolves, this has been a fertile spring for Mill Mountain Zoo and its other endangered species - which, unlike the wolves, are on display.
"All of the animals we have from the Species Survival Program either have had a birth or are expecting," Poff said. "We had a golden-lion tamarin born this spring. We had a tree kangaroo born. Our white-necked crane laid an egg, and our red panda looks like she's pregnant."
Is there a connection?
"Probably that rough winter," Poff said.
by CNB