The red wolf pups were born in April at the St. Louis Zoo Sears Lehmann Junior Wildlife Reserve, a 355-acre conservation area located in Franklin County. A few days later, a litter of red wolf pups were born at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina.
Regina Mossotti, the Vice President of Animal Care at the Zoo, said conservationists carried out a process they call pup cross fostering -- where they swapped three, two-week-old pups from both dens.
"It works because wolves are actually very shy and scared of people and they run away, so we can sneak these little puppies in," she said. "[We] make them all smell the same, we take dirt from the den and the other puppies and kind of rub them all together so they all smell the same and then we get out."
Courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Mossotti said the move was necessary because the species is critically endangered, as there's only about 40 red wolves left in the wild.
"I'm a local Missourian and red wolves used to be native here once, but we lost them. They're now wiped out from their entire historic range with the exception of North Carolina," she said. "And on top of that, it is a species that's solely native to the United States. This is our wolf, the american red wolf."
Unfortunately, the pack the wild pups have been raised in in St. Louis were hit by a tick-borne diseases recently, and a few of the pups never recovered. However, Mossotti said the zoo-born pups are thriving with their family in North Carolina. They're about 5 month-old now.
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