The protected Red Wolf population sequestered on a few North Carolina barrier islands will face additional perils if the North Carolina Wildlife Reources Commission gets a law passed allowing nightime shooting of coyotes...........The Red Wolf Coalition is asking for your support to get this bill defeated.........My friends Helen Mcginnis and John Laundre at Cougar Rewilding trade some commentary with me folllowing the article below regarding whether we should be keeping the Red Wolves"pure" and not allowing nature to take its course and let Coyotes continue to further hybridize with the Wolves so as to create the canid most fit to persist in our desnsely urban and crowded 21st century human dominated world..........The debate continues on the "canid soup" matrix that is at play in the Eastern USA today

Dear Friend of Red Wolves,

     Red wolves will soon be threatened by NIGHT HUNTING of coyotes UNLESS red wolf supporters join forces! Please help the Red Wolf Coalition defeat the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission's (NCWRC) proposed rule change! The Red Wolf Coalition needs everyone who values red wolves to help endangered red wolves now!

     The NCWRC has proposed making night hunting of coyotes (along with feral pigs) LEGAL throughout North Carolina, including the 5-county red wolf recovery area. This rule would allow unlimited hunting 24 hours a day with the use of artificial lights. The proposed rule would allow hunting on Sundays on private land using archery equipment.

     The Red Wolf Coalition is leading the opposition to this rule change because an increasing number of red wolves will be killed by shooters who mistake the wolves for coyotes. Gunshot mortality has increased over the past 5 years with "open season" daylight killing of coyotes allowed. The proposed rule change will mean more red wolf deaths, and the result could be devastating for the red wolf population. Please help to stop this from happening!

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP THE RED WOLF COALITION KEEP THIS RULE FROM PASSING?


Go immediately to http://www.ncwildlife.org/ProposedRegulations.aspx. To make your comments PART OF THE PUBLIC RECORD, click on the On-line comment form OR on regulations@ncwildlife.org<mailto:regulations@ncwildlife.org>.  The comment period closes April 16, 2012! All comments on the web site become part of the public record and will be collected and given to the commissioners to review. Write to the individual commissioners, too! Click on this link for their email addresses: http://216.27.39.101/CommInfoContacts/Commissioner_Contacts.htm


Voice your objections! Tell the NC Wildlife Resources Commission you oppose the rule change for two reasons:

     Red wolves would be in jeopardy, even more than they already are with daylight coyote hunts, especially during the fall rifle seasons for bear and deer. Night spotlight hunting will increase the chance for critically endangered red wolves to be mistaken for coyotes and shot. This could happen during denning season when red wolf parents have pups to care for and raise.
     Night hunting of coyotes and feral swine is dangerous to humans and their pets. How would public safety be managed? What about dogs that are mistaken for coyotes?

PLEASE TAKE ACTION NOW! Tell your friends and neighbors! Teach them about red wolves and how this rule change could devastate one of North Carolina's wildlife treasures, a native species of the state. Make others aware of the safety issues. Go to www.redwolves.com<http://www.redwolves.com> for updated information!



In addition, PUBLIC HEARINGS are scheduled to receive comments on the proposed night hunting rules. Please attend the hearing in your area and SPEAK UP FOR RED WOLVES!
March 20, 2012
7 p.m.
Iredell County Agricultural Extension Center
444 Bristol Dr.
Statesville, NC 28677
March 21, 2012
7 p.m.
District Court #1
Buncombe County Courthouse
60 Court Plaza
Asheville, NC 28801
March 26, 2012
7 p.m.
Bladen County Courthouse
106 W. Broad Street
Elizabethtown, NC 28337
March 28, 2012
7 p.m.
Room 153 in the Fulford Building
Pitt Community College
4381 County Home Rd.
Greenville, N.C. 27858
March 29, 2012
7 p.m.
Centennial Campus for Wildlife Education
1751 Varsity Dr.
Raleigh, N.C. 27606

I am attaching our press release that is going out to all of our  media contacts.  If you have a media contact, we would appreciate you sharing this press release.

Thank you for your support!!

Kim Wheeler
Executive Director
Red Wolf Coalition, Inc.
P.O. Box 96
Columbia, NC 27925
Phone - 252.796.5600<tel:252.796.5600>
"Support red wolf conservation"
www.redwolves.com<http://www.redwolves.com
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Fm: Helen Mcginnis


Rick,
The one premise I object to in the red wolf issue is the assumption (not clearly stated here) that coyotes and red wolves must be kept separately genetically. But red wolves may well be the same as Algonquin=eastern wolves. Eastern coyotes are part red/Algonquin wolf and are better adapted to current conditions in the East, including intense human persecution, than full blood wolves. As long as genetically pure red wolves are kept in captivity, what's wrong with interbreeding between the two species in the wild?
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To: Helen Mcginnis
fm Rick Meril
Helen..................I come out mostly on your side on the "canid soup" admix of Eastern/red wolves and coyotes...........................

Here is what would be ideal....................Coyotes swamped the remaining fragmented Eastern wolves as you know over the past 100 years.............Not enough red wolves remaining and those males that persisted bred with the plethora of female coyotes that wandered East of the Mississippi.......................

It would be a great thing for Eastern Wolves to build up enough of a population so as to for the optimum canid soup conditions to play out.

Anotherwards, if there is going to be hybridization as well as pure wolves and pure coyotes, let the resulting hybrids come from the best and strongest of both worlds, rather than be an overwhelming % of coyote............

The Eastern Coyote that is the admix of Eastern Wolves(Canada origen as all usa eastern wolves extirpated by late 1800's).....................allow the western coyotes that have wandered into the southeast to mix with a larger population of red wolves...............
Perhaps no longer possible in this desnely populated land of ours................One mans thoughts

Rick
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From John Laundre


coyotes are the ONLY "large" predator we have in the East and as such play an important role in the ecosystem. To treat them as vermin indicates the lack of ecological knowledge game agencies and the hunters that run them have of ecological processes. Even IF coyotes impacted deer, which no study has shown yet, that is their role! Until hunters realize this and push for predator conservation, i.e. reasonable hunting regulations WITH seasons and limits, I am ashamed to call myself a hunter. I thought hunters were against the wanton killing of wildlife or does that just apply to the species they like? As they say, if your not with us, your against us and it is stime hunters prove they have some of that hunter conservationist philosophy they claim to.