Two red wolves arrive in Colorado, their 'forever home.'
and hosts daily tours of the facility.
"We're a forever home for animals that cannot go into the wild because they have been raised by people,” says Erika Moore, assistant director and animal care supervisor at the CWWC.Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center Starting today, September 21, visitors can see one more breed at the center: the rare red wolf. Two ten-year-old red wolves, Shawnee and Van Gogh, have joined the center after retiring from the breeding program for the species at“Generally, in the wild, ten years would actually be considered very old for a wolf,” says Moore. “They have contributed their genetics to the red wolf population, and now they are basically coming to their retirement home at the center.
There are about twenty red wolves left in the wild, on the coast of North Carolina; the species used to roam a swath of the Mideast, from Virginia down to Texas and below. Shawnee and Van Gogh are the first red wolves in Colorado, and the CWWC is the only facility in the state that can host them under U.S. Fish and Wildlife regulations.to house endangered animals.
Red wolves, along with the gray wolves that will soon be reintroduced in Colorado, serve the same function as a keystone species: bringing balance to the ecosystem by regulating prey species. Kobobel was a proponent of