Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Loup means Wolf in French. IT's pronounced "Loou"

That is the word for Wolf in French. I learned that at Grand Jardin Provincial Park and Wildlife Reserve. The lady ranger told me that as she also told me that gathering wood for a fire, even if that fire may save my life, was prohibited. I put the wood I was carrying back into the woods, kind of like A Kurt Vonnegut scenario where guns are disassembled and the metal unrefined and then buried...
anyway, I left the week of what is known as Wolf Awareness Week. Or Wolf Observation Week.
Here are some facts to digest in light of this important date.

Red Wolf or Canis rufus or Loup Rouge

The red wolf is a smaller and a more slender cousin of the gray wolf. It is gray-black, with a reddish cast that gives it the color for which it is named.

Go Wild!
Help save the world’s only red wolves from illegal killing, road deaths and habitat loss by Adopting a Red Wolf today!

Height: About 26 inches at shoulders
Length: 4.5-5.5 feet long (including the tail)
Weight: 50-80 lbs
Lifespan: 6-7 years in the wild; up to 15 years in captivity

Diet

The red wolf’s diet consists primarily of small mammals such as rabbits and rodents. Also known to eat insects, berries and occasionally deer.

Population

Almost hunted to the brink of extinction, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rounded up fewer than 20 pure red wolves to be bred in captivity in 1980. As of 2007, approximately 207 captive red wolves reside at 38 captive breeding facilities across the United States. Thanks to these programs, more than 100 red wolves currently live in the wild.




100 wolves left in the wild? That's not many.
Creative Commons License
Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.