We’re the Red Wolves From State
NC State’s red wolf conservation efforts were introduced to a national audience, thanks to a segment on the Today show.
While the NC State Wolfpack regularly makes headlines for athletics, groundbreaking research and community initiatives, it was the university’s much rarer red wolves that made national news this week. For a special Earth Week segment on the Today show, NBC’s Emilie Ikeda interviewed College of Veterinary Medicine faculty and students about their conservation efforts to help the most endangered wolf in the world.
The NC State Carnivore Conservation Crew is a volunteer organization run by veterinary faculty and about 40 students who care for the 10 red wolves on campus year-round. The group works with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Saving Animals From Extinction (SAFE) Program to restore the red wolf population. Around 50 partners across the country care for about 250 red wolves, facilitating breeding and helping to release the best-fit wolves into the wild on the coast of North Carolina. Fewer than than 20 red wolves live in the wild.
In addition to highlighting the program’s important work, the Today show’s crew members documented the arrival of a female red wolf from the North Carolina Zoo, who will become part of a breeding pair. They also spoke with Tara Harrison, associate professor of zoo and exotic animal medicine, and members of the Carnivore Conservation Crew.
“It was an honor to be able to showcase how the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine faculty and students partner with the SAFE American Red Wolf Program to a national audience,” Harrison said. “We are thankful that NBC News chose to highlight the role we and our partners play in helping to conserve the world’s most critically endangered canid. Our students who participate in the Carnivore Conservation Crew are fortunate that their education includes caring for endangered animals and learning about the importance of conservation up close.”
The CVM communications team, composed of Burgetta Wheeler, John Joyner and Alyssa Fisher, coordinated the visit and spent about seven hours with the NBC crew the day of the video shoot. Sherry Samuels and Nikki Stoudt from Durham’s Museum of Life and Science, which also maintains a red wolf population, were on site too.
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