About the song: This song was written for the 11:59 Songwriting Group in Austin, TX led by Dave Madden. The prompt was "Endling" which is the last of a species. This song is about the Red Wolf.
Red wolves were once distributed throughout the southeastern and south-central United States from the Atlantic Ocean to central Texas, southeastern Oklahoma and southwestern Illinois in the west, and in the north from the Ohio River Valley, northern Pennsylvania, southern New York, and extreme southern Ontario in Canada south to the Gulf of Mexico. The red wolf was nearly driven to extinction by the mid-1900s due to aggressive predator-control programs, habitat destruction, and extensive hybridization with coyotes. By the late 1960s, it occurred in small numbers in the Gulf Coast of western Louisiana and eastern Texas.
Fourteen of these survivors were selected to be the founders of a captive-bred population, which was established in the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium between 1974 and 1980. After a successful experimental relocation to Bulls Island off the coast of South Carolina in 1978, the red wolf was declared extinct in the wild in 1980 so that restoration efforts could proceed. In 1987, the captive animals were released into the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge (ARNWR) on the Albemarle Peninsula in North Carolina, with a second unsuccessful release taking place two years later in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.[15] Of 63 red wolves released from 1987 to 1994, the population rose to as many as 100–120 individuals in 2012, but due to the lack of regulation enforcement by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the population has declined to 40 individuals in 2018, about 14 in 2019 and 8 as of October 2021. No wild litters were born between 2019 and 2020.
Under pressure from conservation groups, the US Fish and Wildlife Service resumed reintroductions in 2021 and increased protection. In 2022, the first wild litter was born since 2018. As of 2023, there are between 15 and 17 wild red wolves in ARNWR. (source: Wikipedia)
Video of the first live performance of "Red Wolf": youtu.be/n5rITzpZfb8?si=RI5P25NXCfZSCzUI